Palin Becomes Target for Effort by Women's Fundraising Group Emily's List

Emily’s List, the group devoted to electing female Democrats who support abortion rights, is trying to use Sarah Palin’s fundraising power against her.

Palin, who has helped raise millions of dollars for Republicans this year, is the target of a new online campaign from Emily’s List called “Sarah Doesn’t Speak for Me.” It’s designed to contrast the politics of the group’s preferred candidates with those endorsed by the former Alaska governor.

Stephanie Schriock, the president of Emily’s List, said the new website will serve as a “virtual public square” for Palin opponents to share information while serving as a get-out-the- vote hub for Democratic women. She said she hopes the site will expand Emily’s List’s network and boost its fundraising efforts.

“Sarah Palin and her endorsed candidates are extreme and bad for America,” Schriock told reporters in Washington today. “We didn’t want women across the country to think that there’s only one voice for women. And we didn’t want Sarah Palin’s voice to go unchallenged.”

Schriock wouldn’t say how much her Washington-based group will spend on the effort, which includes plans for a targeted advertising campaign.

Officials at SarahPac, Palin’s fundraising committee, didn’t immediately return phone and e-mail messages seeking a response to the campaign. The Susan B. Anthony List, which works to promote antiabortion female politicians, criticized Emily’s List for calling Palin’s politics “backwards-looking.”

“Emily’s List is running scared, and it shows,” according to a statement from the Washington group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser. “Clearly, in this ‘Year of the Pro-Life Woman,’ which Sarah Palin helped make possible, women have found their political voices.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net;

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