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Sarah Palin Sends Out Fundraising Appeal With Grammatical Error

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Sarah Palin's official PAC has pulled in more than $2.1 million this election cycle and spent $1.2 million (almost none of it on federal candidates for office, of which more in a moment), so you'd think she could afford to hire someone who can write her fundraising letters in grammatically correct English. Or at least she could get a competent proofreader. Apparently not: Here, in part, is an E-mailed fundraising appeal from the former Alaska governor on behalf of Sarah PAC (emphasis mine):

Dear Supporter,

Last month marked the one-year anniversary of Sarah PAC, and I want to personally extend to you my sincere thanks for your support and our shared goals of common sense solutions and values. It's been an incredible year and 2010 brings us the opportunity to continue that success.

In this pivotal election year, we have an opportunity to focus our direction and spread the ideals on which our Nation was founded. There are ripe opportunities in campaigns across the Country and winning these races will be our focus. Thirty-seven Governorships, one third of the United States Senate, and the entire House of Representatives is up for election. There are State Senate and State Legislature races where only a few seats mean the difference between more of what we have seen or what we share as a vision for this great Country.

For those of you who need remedial English, that should be "... are up for election." No doubt I'll be accused of being an elitist and a pedant (and who but an elitist would use the word "pedant"?) for noting this, but I don't think it's unfair to expect national leaders' written missives to follow the basic rules of grammar. In fairness to Palin, she presumably didn't write the letter herself; and in fairness to her staffer, Microsoft Word's grammar checker missed the mistake, which goes to show you can trust such devices only so far.

The note goes on to ask that readers renew their support for Sarah PAC (in other words, give money) because "your continued support is critical to provide the ability to support those candidates and campaigns in all areas of our Nation." That's somewhat amusing, given that, as I mentioned above, her PAC has spent $1.2 million thus far but hasn't donated much at all to federal candidates. To be precise, Sarah PAC has contributed $43,000 to candidates. Or to put it another way, her PAC spent more on copies of Going Rogue than it did on Republicans seeking elective office. (Emphasis added)

It will be interesting to see whether candidate contributions make up a larger portion of the money Sarah PAC spends as the election draws closer.

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