Why Sarah Palin's Going to Run

Rachel Maddow caught a video in which husband Todd admitted that Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska so she could make money--thousands of dollars a day.

In my opinion, this is why Sarah Palin will ultimately run for president as well. Sarah Palin doesn't particularly want to run for president and I doubt that she wants to be president either. If Palin wanted to run and be president, she would have already jumped into the campaign. Still, Palin is constrained to run for president because she can't maintain her current standard of living unless she runs. Much as Newt Gingrich's little "American Solutions" empire depended on the "Newt for President" tease, Palin's much bigger empire of her Fox gig, television show, book deals, and speaking tours all depend on the idea that Palin could run for president as the chosen representative of right-wing America. It's not like Palin would dry up and blow away if she doesn't run, but her speaker's fees, ratings, advances on her books, and general marketability are all going to decline substantially if she doesn't answer the call of the popular white right and run for the presidency.

Todd Palin's comments are an indication that Team Palin has some sense of the connection between Sarah's income and her politics.

Mitt Romney is Doomed! Doomed!

There never was much reason to think that Mitt Romney had a fighting chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2012. Sure, Romney has all the right stuff on paper. He's a former Wall Street honcho and he saved the LA Olympics, served two terms as governor of Massachusetts, and looks great in a suit. Romney also projects oodles of alpha male leadership qualities and is going to win all of the fundraising battles because of his own personal fortune and his access to big business and Mormon cash.

But none of that means much in the Republican primaries.

Romney is what's going to be known as the classic "Mike Castle" candidate. The now former senator from Delaware, Mike Castle was experienced, popular, had lots of money and would have won a general election against a Democrat hands-down.

And I'm sure that Castle was supremely confident of election in 2010.

Nevertheless, Castle's re-election campaign folded up like origami paper after a few well-placed Tea Party attack ads on his moderation and Castle ended up with the most humiliating loss possible. He was beaten by the unemployed, dysfunctional neophyte Christine O'Donnell who promptly became a national embarrassment.

In the same way, Mitt Romney has little chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination even though he's leading in the polls. As soon as aggressive conservatives like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, or Rick Perry begin running attack ads, Romney's numbers are going to sink and his campaign's going to run aground.

And if the other GOP candidates aren't going to go after Romney, Tea Party organizations were determined to see that he didn't win.

But it turned out that none of that was necessary.

Even without a barrage of attack ads, the current polling indicates that Romney is a long-shot. A PPP poll released today has Romney 20%, Bachmann 16%, Palin 12%, Perry 11%, and the GOP riff raff corralling another 32% among them. Romney's ahead, but these are disastrous numbers for him because Bachmann, Palin, and Perry are the same woman or "guy." They're Tea Party affiliated, aggressive, religious, suspicious of government, and alienated from the multi-cultural America that's going to line up behind Obama's re-election. Bachmann, Palin, and Perry get 39% of the vote between them and that's the case even though neither Palin nor Perry have started campaigning yet. Bachman was around 5% before she announced. One positive debate performance and some hard campaigning later, Bachmann's nipping at Romney's heels in a field of ten. When Perry and Palin announce (and I'm convinced Palin will run), their numbers can be expected to go up as well.

Bachmann's actually slipping ahead of Romney on other measures, edging Romney by 1 point (21-20) with Sarah Palin not being considered and edging Romney again (44-41) in a head to head measure. Bachmann's even or slightly ahead despite not having Romney's name recognition, not having Romney's money, and not running any RINO crushing attack ads. Right now, Romney's a second choice for almost as many Palin, Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Ron Paul, Pawlenty, and Huntsman supporters as Bachmann.

Romney also seems to be the second choice of that guy in Idaho who supports Rick Santorum.

But support will eventually drift away from Romney as the super-charged emotions of the Republican primaries start building in earnest and the number of candidates drops down from the current 10 after the South Carolina caucuses.

Who becomes Romney's strongest opponent is anybody's guess. Right now, I would give slightly better odds to Michele Bachmann because she's proven to be more energetic, more determined, and more systematic than either Sarah Palin or Rick Perry.

But that could change.

Given all her charisma, Sarah Palin still has an opportunity to reignite among conservatives. Likewise, it could be the case that Perry has untapped national appeal.

Who knows?

But the battle to win the Republican nomination is likely to be determined by who's the strongest between Bachman, Palin, and Perry.

Sarah Palin's Appeal

A well-stated formulation of Sarah Palin's core appeal by Jonathan Kay writing for Salon:

Sarah Palin isn’t like other politicians. I know this from personal experience, having watched her speak to a massive Tea Party event that I covered while researching my newly published book about conspiracy theories, "Among the Truthers." She is not so much listened to as worshiped. Her stock right-wing policy formulations and anti-Obama barbs are not really the source of her appeal. Rather, Palin is loved for the personal qualities she embodies: Her large family, her decision to give birth to a child she knew had Down syndrome, her son who served in Iraq, her small-town clapboard roots. There is a rapturous quality that comes over right-wing audiences when she speaks, as if they were in the presence of a Madonna figure come to deliver America from its travails.

Of course, the America that Palin's audiences view her as delivering is "white America."

Will Sarah Palin Ever Hire a Republican?

Golly! That liberal media is tough. Newsweek puffs Sarah Palin to the hilt. They even have a couple of cheesecake wilderness shots.

The hard-bitten journalism crew at Newsweek also makes it sound like Palin's a lock to run for president but hasn't decided how she's going to run a presidential campaign without actually doing any campaigning. Is Palin doing to run a stealth campaign where she swoops into a town or state without notifying anybody? Or is it going to be a Zen campaign where she sits on her porch in Wasilla (or is it Phoenix?) and focuses on her breathing.

"Sarah Palin is now breathing."

These are all questions that I'd like to see answered but that Newsweek was too breathless to address. Maybe they were just too excited by their exclusive access to ask any questions.

My own biggest question is whether Palin is going to bite the bullet and hire a living, breathing Republican to work for her campaign. Palin seems to have developed a phobia for all the consultants, campaign operatives, opposition researchers, and local officials associated with the Republican Party. She avoided them like the plague on her swing through the Eastern historical sites and didn't contact anybody in the Republican Party about her trip to Pella, Iowa ("an old Dutch town with the country’s largest working windmill") to see her campaign video "Undefeated."

To be honest, I can't blame Palin. Like a lot of Americans, I'm not particularly fond of the Republican political apparatus either. They're the kind of people who give dishonesty and corruption a bad name. But I really think that Sarah Palin has to hire at least one Republican if she's going to run for the Republican nomination.

Bachmann Disappoints

Elite political commentators are pretty much unanimous in agreeing that Michele Bachmann helped herself last night.

To the extent that any candidate stood out as a potential anti-Romney, it was . . . Rep. Michele Bachmann, who started the debate with the surprise announcement that she had filed to run for president of the United States. The TV-friendly conservative, beloved by the tea party, introduced herself to a national audience as a “former federal tax litigation attorney” and “businesswoman,” repeatedly mentioning the 23 foster children that she and her husband have raised. And unlike the other candidates, who are largely former officeholders, Bachmann was able to point to her voting record as a sitting congresswoman to show she’s in the midst of pitched fights over health care reform, financial regulation and federal spending.

That was Politico. Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post goes on.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann came into Monday night’s presidential debate in the Queen City as an unknown commodity. She left it as the most talked-about candidate in the 2012 GOP field.

That translates to me as Bachmann "beat expectations" by sounding better than Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich, and thus stood out.

That's true.

But Michele Bachmann isn't running against those guys. She's running against Sarah Palin to be the candidate of the religious right and Tea Party against Mitt Romney.

If Palin decides to run, Bachmann will have to go toe to toe with her. But even if Palin doesn't run, Bachmann's has to show that she can catch fire like Palin did in 2008 if she wants to be beat Romney.

And Bachmann didn't do anything to indicate that she could catch fire.

As a result, I rate Bachmann's night pretty much as a failure. If she really wants to compete for the Republican nomination, she'll have to raise her game.

The Wisdom of Will?

On "This Week," George Will was pontificating about whether anybody could imagine Sarah Palin being in control of nuclear weapons.

Pretty much your everyday Palin Put-Down from the GOP elite.

Of course, I'll admit that I'm biased enough about Sarah Palin have a hard time imagining her being responsible about anything.

But I don't see any reason to view Palin as more dangerous than warmongers like George W., Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, or John Bolton.

Actually, I see Palin as a little less dangerous than that group. Being ignorant and impulsive is less dangerous than being well-informed and determined to flout international law.

Who's Afraid of Sarah Palin?

Lots of people according to Rush Limbaugh (Being interviewed by the always scary-looking Greta Van Susteren).

You know the effect that she has on establishment Republicans. They are just as frightened in their own way as the Democrats are of Palin. And I -- one thing I think that is inescapable, particularly with when looking at the Democrats. The Democrats will always -- and the media -- will always tell us who they are afraid of by virtue of who they spend time trying to destroy . . . Bottom line is she scares them. She also scares the Republican establishment.

I can see where Sarah Palin and the Tea Party might scare some Beltway Democrats. They're pretty much scared of everything, including people like me. But progressives are part of the Democratic establishment as well and progressives would think they've died and went to heaven if the GOP nominated Palin next year.

I know I would.

Sarah Palin vs Republican Elites: Advantage Palin

America is soon going to find out if Sarah Palin still matters. After more than four months out of the limelight, Palin is embarking on a historical tour of the Northeast.

The first stop will be at the annual Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally. Palin will then travel up the East Coast in a trip that will include her first stop in New Hampshire since running as the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2008.

Palin will also be stopping at other spots of symbolic national significance on the East Coast, including the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg and Antietam, and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

For Palin's sake, I hope she knows the Revolution better than Michele Bachmann, the Constitution better than Herman Cain, and the Civil War better than your average Confederate re-enactor. If Palin celebrates the Confederacy during her visits to Civil War sites and ignores the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers who gave their lives to defend the union and emancipate the slaves, she'll have hell to pay.

But the main question is whether Palin's re-emergence matters for the Republican presidential nomination. Steve Kornacki of Salon thinks that GOP elites have squelched any expectation of a Palin victory.

. . . an unofficial "stop Palin" campaign was launched by opinion-shaping GOP "elites" in the months after the midterm. Conservatives with credibility with the GOP rank-and-file -- including Charles Krauthammer, Andrew Breitbart and even Bill Kristol . . . -- began delivering the message in subtle and not-so-subtle ways: Let's find someone else . . . As a result of all of this, Palin will enter the GOP race -- if she does decide to run -- as a marginalized figure. She has plenty of fans among the party's grass roots, universal name recognition, and probably the ability to raise some serious money in small donations. But the most influential voices on the right are almost universally opposed to her now, and are committed to communicating this to the rank-and-file.

Kornacki goes on to say that GOP elites have "this one under control."

But nothing's farther from the case.

Sure, elite figures like Krauthammer, George Will, and Ann Coulter pushed Palin's poll numbers down from the low 20's into the teens and that Palin became radioactive after her "blood libel" comments on the Tucson shootings.

But Palin has basically played Republican elites to a draw.

After the "blood libel" fiasco, Palin did the smart thing and lowered her public profile. Outside supporting Scott Walker in Wisconsin and a brain-dead tweet about the bin Laden hit, Palin stayed so far out of public view that everyone started thinking that she no longer wanted to run.

Meanwhile, Republican elites were embarrassing themselves with their feckless search for the "Great White Alternative" to Romney and Palin. It's important to emphasize that Republican elites don't like Mitt Romney any more than they like Sarah Palin and Romney's numbers have been pushed down by all the carping about his work on health care in Massachusetts.

But the elite search for an alternative to Romney and Palin has been a complete debacle. Not only did John Thune, Jeb Bush, Haley Barbour, and Mitch Daniels have no chance of winning the nomination, they all had even less chance of beating Obama than Romney and Palin. It's been so bad that people like Rich Lowry of the National Review are ready to throw up their hands and start shouting "No Mas! No Mas!" before the first primary vote is cast.

And it's getting worse. Now people like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor are mooning over the currently toxic Paul Ryan and the obnoxious to the nth degree Chris Christie. The Jewish Cantor has as much hope to be raptured as he has of Paul Ryan winning the nomination.

So, where does the Republican field stand now? With the withdrawal of Mike Huckabee, the first tier is now Romney and Palin, but their numbers have been beaten down to 17% and 15% over the last six months. Romney has more money, organization, and self-discipline; Palin has more campaign charisma, a more ferocious approach to attacking Obama, and the prospect of uniting social conservatives and the Tea Party behind her. If Romney wasn't so vulnerable to negative advertising on health care and abortion, he would have the edge. But the Tea Party faction has made it clear that the GOP primaries are going to feature brutal attacks on Romney's "RINO" record.

Advantage Palin.

That is, unless another joke candidate like Donald Trump surgest to the front by making the most extravagantly stupid claims about Obama.

That's how little control Republican elites actually have.

Rescuing Sarah Palin

Alternet's Sarah Seltzer asks if Sarah Palin is "finally a goner."

Perhaps a good question.

But the answer is a resounding "No."

It's apparent that Fox News is committing itself to Palin as a presidential candidate and has scheduled a puffball interview with Sean Hannity for next Monday.

Call it the "Sarah Palin Rehabilitation Project."

It's not like this is the last time she's going to need it.

A Little Less Cautious In My Optimism

Nate Silver of Five Thirty-Eight and now the New York Times is very cautious in his optimism about Obama's chances of winning re-election.

I'm a little less cautious.

That's mostly because I expect Obama to be facing weak opposition.

If Obama is currently topping out at 49% in public opinion polls, Sarah Palin's ceiling is more like 43-46% and that's being pretty generous.

But I don't think Mitt Romney would do much better.

Where Palin is provocative and divisive, she at least comes off as honest and consistent. There is a sense that she wouldn't give up her core politics and personality to become president.

To the contrary, Mitt Romney gives off a air of creepiness rooted in his willingness to do anything to win..

Right now, it appears that neither of the two top Republican contenders would be as appealing as John McCain was in 2008.

Which is grounds for reasonable optimism about Obama's re-election chances.

Sarah Palin's Little Finger

The latest reports out of the battle for the Republican nomination to the U. S. Senate from Alaska has unknown incumbent Lisa Murkowski trailing unknown Joe Miller.

Incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski was thought to be a big favorite coming into Tuesday's primary against Sarah Palin-backed challenger Joe Miller. But with over half the vote in, Miller holds a slight lead over the incumbent, 52 to 48 percent with a little over 2,000 votes separating the two.

Because Alaska has such a far flung population, Murkowski could still pull ahead.

But the fact that Miller's is at the very least putting up a stiff fight is enormous testimony to the power of Sarah Palin.

Because of Sarah Palin's support, Joe Miller is a player. Without her support, he's just another clueless wing nut who wants to invade Canada over socialized medicine.

And Palin didn't have to do much.

If I remember right, Palin put up a couple of posts on facebook and recorded a robocall on his behalf on Monday. I don't think she made any public appearances with Miller or traveled with him around the state.

Sarah Palin is not exactly known for her work ethic and here she barely lifted a finger for Miller.

But, such as they were, Palin's token efforts still put Miller into play.

This all reminds me of a comment on Ben Franklin's attempt to change Pennsylvania from a proprietorship to a royal colony in the 1750's. Franklin wanted to end the proprietorship as a way to eliminate the influence of William Penn's descendants on Pennsylvania affairs.

But one of Franklin's opponents claimed something to the effect that "the little finger of the king weighs more than the loins of the proprietor."

Sarah Palin's little finger has a lot of weight as well.

Sarah Palin as Stop Sign

The best thing about Gabriel Sherman's article on Sarah Palin in the New York magazine is the throw away line that Palin is the "president" or "CEO" of right-wing America.

But I see Palin more as a the right-wing's stop sign, the leading symbol of their refusal to accept the America in which they already live, the post-civil rights, post-feminism, post-gay marriage, macroeconomic America in which government acts on a large scale, a liberal black guy can be president, Mexican immigrants run the Italian restaurant down the street, and lesbian newlyweds are out gardening on weekends.

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It's really too bad.

The Sarah Party Split

One of the things I've picked up from talking with conservatives is that many conservatives activists have just as much contempt for Sarah Palin and the tea party types as any liberal. If Palin gets the nomination, there's going to be a simultaneous inflation and deflation of the Republican Party.

The Sexist Depth of the Sarah Palin Cover

This week's edition of Newsweek arrived a day after the controversy over the magazine's Sarah Palin cover emerged.

Is the cover sexist? You betcha!

And it's worse than Palin or other media critics think.

The main criticism of the Newsweek cover is that it shows Palin in short runner's shorts and reveals a lot of leg. Her top is also zipped down in a mildly suggestive manner. What's sexist about this is that the political magazine is focusing on Palin's sexual attractiveness as a woman rather than her significance as a cultural and political figure. Media Matters for America is also right to call attention to the demeaning girlishness of the Sound of Music reference in the title "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah."

But it's worse.

The Palin picture was originally taken for a running magazine, but Newsweek editors must have known that whole thing has a luridly pornographic effect when put into the context of political news. Take Palin's legs for example. There's a sense in which her legs aren't really "showing" because she's pictured as being so tanned that it looks like she's wearing panty hose. The extremely minimal "concealment" effect of the tan actually enhances the erotic effect of showing her legs in a stripper/porn manner.

The same thing is true of the flag and the Blackberries. On the cover of Newsweek, they look more like stripper props than anything else. Palin is involved in a lot of business and likes to portray herself as a flag-waving patriot. But the Newsweek cover makes her look like someone who uses the American flag and business items to enhance her "sexy" mystique.

Ditto her trademark glasses and hair and the whole pornographic effect is enhanced by the bright and crowded redness of the Palin's top, the flag, and the Newsweek banner.

I imagine that Newsweek could defend itself by arguing that the cover was trying to say something about the luridness of Sarah Palin's appeal. But achingly conventional articles by Evan Thomas and the execrable Christopher Hitchens don't justify any defense of the sort.

Newsweek would have done better if they hadn't covered Palin at all.

The Best Republican Argument Against Health Reform

I'm not sure why the Republicans are comparing health reform to Hitler, Stalin, and Joseph Mengele, or why they're talking about euthanasia and "death panels."

What the should be talking about is themselves.

By far the strongest argument against Obama's health reform plan is that the Republicans might win another presidential election someday. If somebody like Mitt Romney or Bobby Jindal wins the presidency, that means there will be more determined lawbreakers like Dick Cheney and David Arrington and more incompetents like Mike Brown of Katrina fame or Doug Feith ("the dumbest fucking guy on the planet" according to Gen. Tommy Franks). There will be more Grade B GOP activists choking off research that offends the religious right.

And that's nearly not as bad as Sarah Palin becoming president. Then, we'd be getting her classmates from Wasilla or James Dobson coming out of retirement to run the health care apparatus.

If the Republicans want to scare people about health care, the best thing they could do would be to put Sarah Palin's face on a poster with "Do you want this woman in charge of your health care?"

That would certainly make me think twice.

Finally, a Republican president means that the people running Government health insurance will be people opposed to government health insurance. It will mean that the government will start looking for a variety of ways to raise prices and deny coverage in order to drive people back to private health insurance.

In other words, a Republican president means that the Government will become just like the private health insurance companies--

Only Much Worse.

And that's the best argument the Republicans could make against health reform.

Palin's Back

The blog site Conservatives4Palin fronts this picture of Sarah Palin with her back turned to the viewer gazing out over an oil pipeline and some mountains. It's extremely interesting that the conservatives pose Palin's back. This had to be a purposeful strategy because the web designer sacrificed what the right views as Palin's most important asset--her looks. There's a number of ways the Conservative4Palin design can be viewed, but I'm impressed by the austere isolation of the whole representation of Palin. She's alone contemplating snow-covered mountains unspoiled by environmentalists and an oil pipeline stretching out toward more mountains in the distance. There's no Palin family, no Alaskans, no animals and no invitation from the design to either join Palin in her causes or to participate in her strength. One could say that the viewer is invited to admire or support Palin, but only from a distance that's as breathtaking as the mountains.

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The picture has very little to do with Sarah Palin who has five kids and dives enthusiastically into hunting, fishing, and dishing out food at Alaskan gatherings. Very few politicians pose themselves as lonely, isolated, or contemplative figures and Sarah Palin isn't one of them.

In my opinion, Conservatives4Palin should be seen as using Sarah Palin to represent their own sense of isolation and purity as well as their determination to turn their backs on most other Americans.

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But that's a good part of Palin's strength among activist conservatives. She's a tremendous prop for the conservative imagination. Conservatives are able to represent themselves in the most positive light possible through the images they create of Palin.

Reports of a Sarah Palin Divorce

There are reports out this afternoon that Sarah Palin and her husband are getting divorced.

AlaskaReport has learned this morning that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage have confirmed the news. A National Enquirer story exposing previous affairs on both sides led to a deterioration of their marriage and the stress from that led to Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska.

The Palins were noticeably not speaking to each other at last Sunday's resignation speech in Fairbanks. Sarah ditched Todd (MSNBC) right after the speech and left without him. Sarah removed her wedding ring a couple of weeks ago.

If this is the case, it's most unfortunate. The Palin's still have four kids living at home and the baby Trigg is disabled. So, a divorce would hardly be good for the family.

A divorce following so closely on her resignation as governor would give Palin a Lindsey-Lohan kind of train wreck aura as well.

My own opinion is that there's no particular need for Sarah Palin to join John Ensign and Mark Sanford in the roster of Republican train wrecks. And I certainly wouldn't want to see anything happen to derail Palin's upcoming career as a gaffe-a-minute conservative icon. So I hope the rumors aren't really true.

But there's certainly a lot of smoke around Palin's personal life.

Update: Sarah Palin's spokesperson came out with a denial.

Yet again, some so-called journalists have decided to make up a story. There is no truth to the recent "story" (and story is the correct term for this type of fiction) that the Palins are divorcing. The Palins remain married, committed to each other and their family, and have not purchased land in Montana (last week it was reported to be Long Island). Less than one week ago, Governor Palin asked the media to "quit making things up." We appreciate that the more professional journalists decided to question this story before repeating it.

The Official Response from Sarah Palin is a no ambiguity, Shermanesque denial that the media is always seeking: "Divorce Todd? Have you seen Todd? I may be just a renegade hockey mom, but I'm not blind!"-- SARAH PALIN

Of course, that's also the kind of denial that Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro made when they were asked about steroids.

I give the Palins marriage another year.

Is Palin Looking To Destroy GOP?

I've been warning about the collapse of the Republican Party for several months now. But now there is a scenario for GOP collapse that's out in the media.

CNN has a story about Mike Huckabee warning Sarah Palin not to leave the Republican Party for an independent presidential campaign.

"I hope she remains — let me be real clear — a part of the Republican Party," Huckabee told FOX News. "I'm a little concerned when I hear her say that she may
sort of branch out and go third party or go independent. That would be a big mistake because we need to rebuild the Republican Party, not abandon it."

The Republican Party would be fools if they didn't consider Palin a threat to mount an independent candidacy. She's just not that Republican identified. Palin has never been part of the Alaska Republican establishment and her husband Tod was a member of an Alaskan separatist party until Palin ran for governor. Likewise, Palin recently mentioned that her son was not a Republican.

In this context, Palin's reference to campaigning for non-Republicans might be taken as meaning that she'll be willing to help candidates to the right of the Republican Party.

Anyway, if Sarah Palin left the Republican Party for an independent or third-party candidacy, she'd take about 20% of the Republican vote with her, about 9% of the total.

That vote would increase if activist conservatives generally saw her as a more attractive candidate than a Republican nominee like Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee.

And let's not kid ourselves.

There's a real chance that Bill Kristol, Ann Coulter, Limbaugh and other conservatives might do that. They could easily see an independent Palin candidacy as an opportunity to free "the conservative movement" from what they see as the death grip of the Republican Party.

I could live with it too.

With an independent Palin candidacy, the Republican candidate and Palin would be splitting about 40% of the vote. I imagine that one or the other would win eight or nine states between Utah, Idaho, and the core Confederate states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

That wouldn't even be 100 electoral votes and the conservative movement will have succeeded in it's apparent mission of destroying conservativism in the United States.

Mort Kondracke: Surprisingly Astute About Palin

Fox regular Mort Kondrack gets something right about as often as it snows in Miami. But he does nail Sarah Palin's chance to get the Republican presidential nomination:

It used to be easy to predict who the next Republican presidential nominee would be. It was decided by primogeniture: The next oldest guy in line got to be the king. It’s not so easy looking to 2012, with former Vice President Dick Cheney out of the running and a woman, soon-to-be former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in . . .

And I do believe she’s in — damaged in her chances, maybe, but fully intending to make a run and very popular with the shrinking hard core of the GOP . . .

Does she have a chance to get nominated? You betcha. She’s attractive, charismatic, ambitious, tough to the point of ruthlessness and smart, if still woefully ignorant.

Before she announced her resignation, she was tied in a CNN poll with 2008 candidates Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee and a Pew poll showed that she had an 85% approval rating among conservatives and white evangelicals, to 52% for Romney.

RSI agrees with Kondracke that Sarah Palin has a real shot at the GOP nomination because she's the candidate who's most popular with the hard core of the Republican Party. The fact that the Republican Party is shrinking down to that hard core gives her an advantage over Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

The main question for Palin is whether she's astute enough to cash in on her advantages. It looks like the answer to that question is "no." But it's not like Romney and Huckabee are geniuses either.

Early Morning Palin Note

Sarah Palin says "all options are on the table." Does that mean she's going to:

1. Bomb Iran from the family's Piper plane.

2. Sit on her front porch so she can keep an eye on Russia.

3. Learn mandarin Chinese.

4. Hunt down Big Foot--At Last.

5. Patrol the Canadian border to prevent illegal immigration.

6. Keep track of her kids for a change.

7. Shoot the last polar bear.

8. Join the George W. Bush Reading Club.

9. Stop doing all that darn reading so she can feel at home on Fox.

10. Have an affair with Mark Sanford.