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An endorsement from , former Alaska governor and Tea Party poster child, is one of the the highest-profile plugs a Republican candidate could possibly get — perhaps even more newsworthy than one from President Barack Obama.

So it’s that Palin endorsed John Willoughby‘s campaign for Hawaii’s Second Congressional District seat. She also endorsed Scott Henderson, a candidate for Hawaii’s Seventh House District.

But she didn’t throw her weight behind incumbent Congressman Charles Djou, whose conservative platform seems to fit right in with Tea Party values.

And we’ll never know why because she deleted our media request from her Facebook wall.

Here’s how the story started: Willoughby e-mailed me on Wednesday to let us know the former governor of Alaska would probably be calling to endorse him by phone at a party Thursday night.

Of course, we wanted to talk to Palin’s people about it and find out who else from Hawaii she might be endorsing — and why.

A call to her official led to a perky automated recording of Sarah welcoming me to leave her a message. She explained the lack of human contact to “a large response” (to what, she wasn’t clear). So she directed me to e-mail my media request or leave a voicemail, including my deadline. Naturally, I did both.

After I heard her say, “We’ll be sure and return those calls,” I had high hopes for a call back. (In retrospect, that might be a good Fact Check.)

But instead I got an e-mail directing me to .

Dear Katherine,

Thank you very much for your interest in interviewing Governor Sarah Palin. At the current time your request is under consideration. Should Governor Palin be available for an interview, someone from the Office of Sarah Palin or SarahPAC will contact you directly.

Meanwhile, we kindly direct you to her Facebook page where she most frequently comments. Thank you for your inquiry.

Intrepid reporters that we are at Civil Beat, I immediately logged onto Facebook and posted my request on her wall. I identified myself as a news reporter and asked my question: “Can you please confirm whether you are endorsing John Willoughby for Hawaii’s Second Congressional District?”

I never got a response, and eventually my request got lost among the copious amounts of posts ranging from the gushy to the conspiracy theory. Several Palin fans tried to “friend” me in the process.

Official confirmation of the endorsement came last night when she actually made the phone call(I was at a Hawaii State Board of Education meeting).

( live-streamed the event.)

But why no similar endorsement for Congressman Djou?

Still no reply to my e-mailed request, so I went back to the Facebook wall in hopes that this time she might draw my number. I identified myself again and asked her why she had endorsed Willoughby, and why not Charles Djou?

Three hours later, I checked her wall to see if I’d gotten lucky.

I scanned previous posts. I did a search for my name. Gone. My media request was nowhere to be found.

Remaining in the same general time slot during which I posted my (now-deleted) request were these posts instead:

It’s hard to even know what conclusion to draw from this — what criteria she uses to decide which posts to delete appears to be the real mystery.

Suffice to say, I’ve broken off my Facebook relationship with Palin, without any cheesy “it wasn’t you, it was me” messages.

And I’ll let you know if I ever hear from SarahPAC.