First Sarah Palin, and now John McCain, have stated that they are federalists, and both have tied that to increased State's Rights.  I say federalist, small "f", rather than Federalist, capital "F", for the obvious reason that the Federalist party has been defunct since the first half of the 19th Century.  Regardless, "federalist" has only one connotation that I'm aware of, the principles of the Federalist Party, the belief in a strong central government, as opposed to State's Rights.  Now, are they both that clueless?

Or is this the start of something new?  In the past, all new parties, or replacement parties as the case may be, started with high-profile politicians using the Word to describe themselves first - the Party came later.