THE Alaska Senate race won't be officially decided until later this month—officials have to go through all the ballots, smoothing out the grizzly-bear tooth-marks and brushing off stray eagle feathers—but as of this morning, it looks like Lisa Murkowski has accomplished the unlikely feat of being elected as a write-in candidate. Ms Murkowski is the incumbent, but lost the Republican primary this year to the tea-party candidate Joe Miller, who is pals with and was heavily promoted by Sarah Palin. 
 
 The outcome won't affect the balance of power in the Senate, but it is a blow to Mrs Palin, who presented herself as a political kingmaker this election season, with decidedly mixed results. If there were any race in which Mrs Palin's influence should have tipped the scales, it would have been this one. This is her home state, she never stops talking about it, she used to be the governor of it, Mr Miller did get through the Republican primary, the Murkowski brand does have a lot of baggage in Alaska and, for pete's sake, Ms Murkowski had to run as a write-in. That her candidate lost is a measure of Mrs Palin's own reduced standing in Alaska. The past two years have taken her further from the state, physically and philosophically—Mrs Palin is more socially conservative than the state as a whole, and I doubt many Alaskans share the normative cultural anxiety that recurs in her public statements. 
 
 Outside of Alaska, though, the picture is not much better. Mrs Palin endorsed 60 candidates around the country; as of now, with a handful of races still uncalled, slightly fewer than half of them won. And I'm hesitant to look at endorsements as a measure of influence, because the value of most endorsements is marginal at most; Mary Fallin, a Republican congresswoman from Oklahoma, hardly needed Mrs Palin's touch to pick up the governor's house from the term-limited Democrat Brad Henry. Looking over the year, Mrs Palin was most effective when she brought a much-needed infusion of money and attention to a lagging candidate early in the process, as with Nikki Haley in South Carolina and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware—but the effects did not always carry through to election day. 
 
 On balance, Mrs Palin undermined her potential credibility by focusing on politics rather than policy, by gambling on a slew of high-profile endorsements (which kept her on television, at campaign events) rather than trying to find and nurture a handful of intellectual or philosophical protegees. Her "mama grizzlies" concept was a clever bit of branding, but the campaign never advanced beyond identity politics. 
 
 Having defined herself as an intrinsically political figure, Mrs Palin is bound by the rules of that game. And so she emerges from the 2010 cycle as a diminished national figure. This is partly the natural career progression of an also-ran: you get a special standing as the face of the opposition, until the next election cycle creates a new set of faces. So now the spotlight swings to people like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, who in addition to being the face of the opposition are actually, having been in elected, in a position to do something about it. As for Mrs Palin, we won't hear so much from her until she makes a decision about 2012. 
 
 (Photo credit: AFP) ||||| Sarah Palin endorsed 60 candidates this year, but when dust settled Wednesday morning, the biggest beneficiary of the “Sarah Palin effect” was not necessarily the candidates themselves, but the Palin brand. 
 
 Of the 34 candidates Palin endorsed for the House, only 15 won, a less-than-stellar average for someone vying to be the difference-maker in Republican politics. 
 
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 She did endorse one giant killer, Vicky Hartzler, who took down veteran Democrat and House Armed Services Chairman Committee Ike Skelton of Missouri. Michael Grimm, who took out New York Democrat Michael McMahon, gave Palin another marquee win. But on the Senate side, only five of her 12 choices were successful – with the most embarrassing stumble potentially being her home-state pick of Joe Miller, who is knotted with Palin foe Lisa Murkowski in a tight battle that could end in a weeks-long recount. 
 
 GOP strategists and observers, however, emphasize that Palin didn’t necessarily choose whom to support based on electability – rather, she backed candidates who aligned with her philosophically. In doing so, she continued to boost the brand that has made her a star among conservatives and raised her name identification with everyone else, regardless of the final scorecard. 
 
 “I think the process has done enough,” said Ed Rollins, Republican campaign consultant and former chairman of Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign. “She's got the most valuable asset anybody can have in politics, and that's name ID — she has negatives, sure, because she's such a polarizing figure — but among the grassroots, the people who will vote in primaries, she's a star.” 
 
 Rollins likened Palin’s 2010 push to Richard Nixon’s campaign swing across the country in 1966, when Nixon positioned himself for another presidential run in 1968 after his loss to John F. Kennedy by stumping for congressional candidates nationwide, helping to lift the GOP to a 47-seat gain. 
 
 “No one remembers who won or lost, only that he was out there,” Rollins said. 
 
 Palin has gone beyond just putting herself “out there,” though. Other potential GOP 2012 presidential hopefuls have hit the trail hard, including Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, but none have drawn the sort of attention and media craze as Palin. Among Republican campaign observers, many believe only Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, has done better building goodwill for himself this cycle with an eye toward the next. 
 
 And though Tuesday’s tally — 27 victories, 15 losses and eight undecided races in all, following 10 primary losses — did not make a clearer case for a Palin presidential run, her supporters feel excited about what her involvement has done to conservative candidates across the country and what she could do in two years. 
 
 Many point to Palin's decision not to surround herself with a deep professional staff as one of the reasons she deserves the credit for her outsized influence, but also an explanation as to why she didn't enjoy a higher success rate Tuesday. Palin seems to have been the architect of many of her own decisions — which some say earns her more loyalty from her chosen candidates but also affected her win total. 
 
 Perhaps no two races were more symbolic of Palin's mixed efforts to take down prominent progressives than her candidates’ success in taking down a 30-year veteran like Skelton, and her failure in Massachusetts, where Sean Bielat fell significantly short of knocking off House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank. 
 
 In Senate contests, she supported Rand Paul, Pat Toomey and John Boozman; but she also backed Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and John Raese.
– Sarah Palin is looking like one of the biggest non-Democratic losers in the midterm elections, according to some analysts. High-profile losses among the candidates she endorsed, especially in Alaska, where Lisa Murkowski appears bound for victory as a write-in candidate, are likely to undermine her credibility, the Economist notes. It predicts that we'll be hearing less from Palin—at least until she makes her 2012 ambitions clear—as the spotlight turns to rising stars who have actually been elected, like Rand Paul and Marc Rubio. GOP strategists, however, say that while Palin's "Mama Grizzlies" may not have been big winners, the Palin brand definitely came out ahead. "She's got the most valuable asset anybody can have in politics, and that's name ID," Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins tells Politico, comparing Palin's efforts in 2010 to Richard Nixon's campaigning on behalf of GOP candidates in 1966 ahead of his successful bid for the White House in 1968 . "No one remembers who won or lost, only that he was out there," Rollins says.