Palin will be campaigning today to help McCain in his primary battle with J.D. Hayworth.

Let’s go over this again: having a charismatic person campaign for you does not work. Her followers–the Tea Party crowd–will not like McCain better for it. This seems strange, I know, but it is what past experiences tell us.

I think it’s largely because charisma involves projection of one’s own ideas onto the charismatic person. So, even though a lot of the Tea Party crowd likes Palin, they will project their own liking for Hayworth onto her, and rationalize that she was only campaigning for McCain out of gratitude for him. So, the bottom line is that they’ll vote for Hayworth and think no less of Palin.