“Hi, this is Governor Sarah Palin. I’m calling to ask that you and your neighbors vote for Tom Tancredo to be the next governor of Colorado on Tuesday,” Palin says in a robocall she recorded for the Tancredo campaign. “Tom is the right man for the job and he’ll fight for lower taxes, and he’ll stop growing government and start growing the economy, and we know he’ll continue working to end illegal immigration.”

Palin’s endorsements have been tracked more closely than those of any other politician — The Washington Post’s Palin Endorsement Tracker indicates it’s her 61st of the cycle — but beyond her personal win-loss record, many pundits argue that today’s results will have important implications for both the Tea Party and Sarah Palin’s standing within the Republican Party. The New York Times has a chart indicating that 138 candidates running for the House and Senate have Tea Party ties; the relative success or failure of those candidates tonight will speak to the kind of mandate the movement can claim and the size of any potential Tea Party caucus in Congress.

Beyond that, the outcomes of Senate races in Alaska, Delaware, Nevada and Colorado — each of which features an arch-conservative Tea Party candidate representing the Republican ticket — will play an outsize role in people’s and pundits’ minds when they ask whether the movement has helped or hurt Republicans win key seats this election cycle. Delaware is widely predicted to go to the Democrat Chris Coons, and if another of these races tips to the Democrat, one could make a legitimate case that the Tea Party kept Republicans from taking the Senate.

Johnson got in touch with Frank Jackalone, Florida staff director of the Sierra Club:

Jackalone, when reached by phone Thursday afternoon, said, “‘We think that Rep. Meek and Gov. Crist would both make excellent senators.”

When asked whether the endorsement was an “insult” to Florida’s environmental community, he said, “It’s not at all. It’s not. It’s recognizing the strengths in both candidates. We’re surprised. I’m not surprised that Meek wants to win the election so he’s trying to differentiate himself.”

He added, “It seems like he [Meek] was disappointed and I’m surprised.”

This isn’t the first co-endorsement in the race. The Florida Education Association, the largest teacher’s union in the state, also co-endorsed both Meek and Crist in May.

In a statement, Meek said:

This election is about taking a stand and fighting for principles you believe in. Today’s Sierra Club co-endorsement is an insult to Florida’s environmental community. The Sierra Club has chosen to stand with a governor who stood on stage applauding as Sarah Palin chanted, ‘Drill, Baby, Drill,’ a governor who signed a law making it easier for big developers to drain the Everglades, a governor who endorsed a bill that would have allowed drilling just three miles away from Florida beaches, and a governor who used polluter talking points to attack climate change legislation.

Yesterday evening, however, as I report today in my story about O’Donnell’s chances, Palin made things official. The former Alaska governor announced her endorsement on Sean Hannity’s radio program and also on her Facebook page. ”We can’t afford ‘more of the same’ in Washington,” she wrote. “Christine will help usher in the real change we need to get America on the right track.”

But with less than four days until the Delaware GOP primary, will it really matter? Palin’s endorsements throughout the midterm season have received a lot of attention, but she’s only batting about .500 when it comes to the success of her chosen ‘mama and papa grizzlies.’ Chris Good at The Atlantic, for one, thinks the endorsement might have less to do with Palin’s feelings about O’Donnell or her chances on Tuesday and more about simple repayment to Tea Party Express, the group that backed her up in launching Joe Miller over Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) in Alaska.

There’s no doubt that Palin’s endorsement will focus still more national attention on the Delaware race and maybe help even out the fundraising deficit that O’Donnell faces. Even with the Tea Party Express pledging to to spend $250,000 on O’Donnell’s behalf, it doesn’t come close to Rep. Mike Castle’s (R-Del.) haul of $3.2 million, the bulk of which he is reported to still have on hand.

But national attention, I point out in my article, is not what O’Donnell lacks. The Tea Party Express and the national media, both eager talk up a possible upset in Delaware for different reasons, saw to that several weeks ago, and the increased scrutiny has done nearly as much to hurt her campaign as it’s helped.

On the local level, her endorsement will only work if it drives turnout among the O’Donnell faithful (mostly in southern Delaware), but it’ll backfire if it provokes more moderate Republican voters (mostly in the more populous northern part of the state) to realize the stakes of the election and come out in droves for Castle. Because O’Donnell and the Tea Party Express had already succeeded in getting the conservative base excited and eager to vote well before Palin ever got involved, my bet is that the nod will do more to energize her opponents that her supporters.

During an interview with National Public Radio in which he was supposed to be making the case for McCain, Lawrence Eagleburger, a former secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush, was frank in his response to whether Palin was ready to assume the presidency, if need be.

From The Huffington Post:

“It is a very good question,” he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a chuckle: “I’m being facetious here. Look, of course not.”

Eagleburger explained: “I don’t think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reins of the presidency. I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either. So the question, I think, is can she learn and would she be tough enough under the circumstances if she were asked to become president, heaven forbid that that ever takes place?

“Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be [pause] adequate. I can’t say that she would be a genius in the job. But I think she would be enough to get us through a four year… well I hope not… get us through whatever period of time was necessary. And I devoutly hope that it would never be tested.”

Following former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s cross-party endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama, McCain has repeatedly pointed to his own endorsements from five other former secretaries of state, including Eagleburger, each of whom he said he admires enormously.

However, if Eagleburger is correct in his assertion that in time, Palin could become “adequate,” it would seem to call into question McCain’s sincerity when he said, “the Oval Office in wartime is no place for on-the-job training.”

The most respected Republican foreign policy voice in America will speak on “Meet The Press” Sunday, sparking rumors about a potential presidential endorsement. Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign will be listening closely.

Obama spokesperson Linda Douglas said today that she has no news on the Powell front, but the campaign would obviously love his endorsement.  “We would welcome the support of somebody with such a distinguished and honorable career as General Powell,” she told me this morning, as Obama’s plane flew to Virginia for a rally.

Obama has previously cited Powell as a potential member of his administration, and the two have been in touch before. “I know they talk from time to time about foreign policy matters,” Douglas said, though she did not know the last time they spoke.

Powell is widely viewed as a thoughtful public servant with credibility (and experience) in both parties.  Since leaving the Bush administration, he has been cast in journalistic accounts as a cautious conservative who sounded alarms about President George W. Bush’s approach to Iraq. In the new movie “W.,” Powell is the only voice of reason in a bunker packed with incompetent neocons.

Warnings given in private about policy decisions cannot offset Powell’s hawkish presentation to the U.N. on the eve of the Iraq war. But unlike so many war cheerleaders in politics and the media, he owned up to his mistakes. On national television, Powell called the U.N. address a “blot” on his record.

In a tough period for the GOP, Powell remains his party’s most beloved national figure. During his tenure as secretary of state, his unfavorable rating held to a remarkable five percent — more in line with Santa Claus than a Bush administration official.

Powell’s unusually strong support across the political spectrum, burned into the public imagination in serving Bill Clinton and two Bushes makes him one of the few people who’s endorsement could actually influence voters.

“[An endorsement] would get several days worth of coverage,” said Time’s Mark Halperin on MSNBC today. “I think for some voters who are wary about voting for an African-American who they don’t know, who doesn’t have experience in national security, [Powell would be] a validator who is almost unique in America today.”

If Powell endorses anyone, his views on Iraq and past praise for Obama make a Democratic nod seem more plausible.