I thought this was the key passage of Nate Silver’s recent magnum opus on Palin’s chances:
Second, I would look toward whom Ms. Palin is hiring as her support staff. A presidential campaign is a huge endeavor, comparable to a medium-sized business. Perhaps, because of her facility in commanding attention, Ms. Palin requires less assistance than a typical candidate might. Perhaps, because she sometimes seems to have an impatience for details and has not run for president before, she requires more. But all presidential candidates need some help: those candidates, like the Republican Fred Thompson, who have become too enamored with the notion of running a “viral”, nontraditional campaign from the confines of their living rooms have usually failed miserably. Is she hiring good pollsters, media strategists, fundraisers, consultants, logisticians, and advertising gurus? If so, she may still be as likely as anyone to prevail from a large, but fairly weak, Republican field. If not, her campaign, if she decides to run one, is liable to be a bust.
Palin’s fundamental problem is that she’s too proud of her ignorance, and too fractious, to build a competent staff and take their advice. I doubt that this will change, assuming that she had something to do with the decision of one of her minions to hire a Wasilla dentist to run his Congressional staff. (via TPM)
peach flavored shampoo
Yes, she’s hired Fox News Channel (no, I dont have that backward). Whomever they tell their brain-dead folk to vote for, they will. Who needs an ad guru when you own your own mega-huge cable station (and probably 200+ AM dials nationwide)?
Keith
In a perfect world, Orly Taitz would be from Wasilla.
Linda Featheringill
Sarah is not known for taking advice well. There were several advisers connected with the McCain campaign that apparently complained that she wouldn’t listen to them. And these were very professional people.
A rumor [fact?] bubbles up every now and then that she will only listen to people who tell her what she wants to here. The word is that she has surrounded herself with yes-men [of whatever gender].
Our method of running for president might be flawed in a lot of ways but it does weed out a lot of silliness like “Don’t tell me what to do.”
David
Just the fact that all she has to do is show the slightest bit of competence and the nomination is hers has to be scaring the crap out of the GOP.
If she makes a couple of halfway normal appearances in an early primary state her rabid supporters will make mincemeat out of the rest of the Republican field. The nomination is hers if she wants it.
Svensker
He said he was proud to be “mired with Sarah Palin”. Apparently they have their own dialect up their in
Wasilla.
MattF
I suspect that Palin’s viability as a candidate and king-maker will fade as the implications of the recent “Disasta in Alaska” with Joe Miller continue to sink in. In fact, Charles “da Hammer” Krauthammer has it right– Palin’s negatives are just too high, and she shows no willingness to do anything about it.
aimai
If the GOP moneymen want to back her they will find her a cadre of top people to run her campaign–but she may not allow herself to be run in which case she will implode. I used to think they might decide to run her against Obama just to damage him, and damage her, but now I think that they may be leery of the damage she will end up doing to the brand image of the party with independents and swing voters long term. I think there’s plenty of reason to believe that the other people who would ordinarily run in 2012 on the Republican side still want to take a crack at Obama and don’t want Palin in the mix but I think there are some who are going to end up wanting to hold fire until 2016 and perhaps they’d like to see her muss everyone’s hair in 2012 so they can ride in and be the “sensible” or perhaps I mean “sane” Republican choice in 2016.
aimai
Chris
I wonder if other candidates in the GOP might want Palin to run in 2012 so that “someone else” can either 1) lose to Obama or 2) win and inherit an unfixable (unfixable with their ideology at least) economic situation. It’s a good bet the job market will still suck in 2012 and for some time after that, and who wants to preside over that kind of clusterfrakk?
It might even be good for the so-called “establishment” of the GOP. Then they can go with the narrative of “see, populism doesn’t work; trust the elites, we know what we’re doing.”
I’m just speculating.
SenyorDave
I don’t think it matters anymore. She could easily win the nomination, and if the economy is bad enough she could win the general election. She has the entire Fox media her (rot in hell, Roger Ailes, you treasonous piece of shit. Goebbels has nothing on you!).
I can almost hear the media now, analyzing the Obama-Palin debate, wieghing her nonsensical answers against his thoughtful responses, and declaring that she has so much passion.
The only saving grace is that she has so many groups that would vote en masse against her (blacks, Hispanics, non-Orthodox Jews, educated women) that the math might just be against her.
The advantage she (and the GOP) has is that the media doesn’t even bother to look at some of the crazy stuff some of these shitbags have said in the past (Huckabee with his AIDS “quarantine”).
Ross Hershberger
@aimai:
Well put. I agree with all of that.
Personally I think the most likely outcome, but by no means certain, is that the GOP Powers will see her as too unpredictable and manage to torpedo her early. And I don’t think her true base is actually big enough to do anything against that.
jayackroyd
She is just a grifter. She is not running. Won’t declare for NH.
arguingwithsignposts
Interestingly, that didn’t used to be the case.
Ross Hershberger
Even if the GOP has written off beating Obama in ’12, and they might have in their heart of hearts, they still have to run a credible candidate. There are plenty of down-ticket races that will be affected by turnout. If the GOP runs a sacrificial lamb in a symbolic gesture, it could reduce turnout to the detriment of their other candidates. They have to make the best race they can of it even if they know Obama will eat their lunch.
Considering La Palin’s colossal negatives I don’t think she’s the one to get the GOP base out to the polls.
Tom65
She’ll rattle her chains in NH, just to scare the beejeesus out of the more mainstream candidates and get some some kind of payoff for going away.
New Yorker
Is this like Caligula putting his horse in the Senate?
Ross Hershberger
George Will says Palin can’t be elected.
11D chess, or the truth from an old timer?
Punchy
What the hell does “Cthulhu” mean?
Face
I love how everyone on that TPM thread is calling her “Paylin”. Apropos, bitches.
Uloborus
I really think you have misunderstood something, Mistermix. Sarah can’t tie her shoes. Getting elected governor in Alaska is like getting elected mayor of a decent sized town – you can do it by looks and charm and most of all, luck.
Since then, EVERYTHING she has was given to her. She’s not selling her brand, other people are using her as a figurehead to try and herd the Tea Party flock. Look at her record before 2008. She manipulates her way into a position, then screws it up royally and abandons ship. Right now Fox is pimping her, the Kochs are funneling money to her in devious ways, and their various stooges pretending to be grassroots leaders do all of her organizing. Put her alone for five minutes and she does some damn fool thing like steal from a green room.
The question is not if Sarah Palin can hire good help. She obviously can’t. The question is if someone else will still be interested enough to do it for her, and if they can get her to listen.
EDIT – @Punchy: Cthulhu is a horrible tentacled god-monster from the famous ‘Humanity is surrounded by awful things and doesn’t know it’ books by H. P. Lovecraft.
Jinchi
It’s too bad Nate has been captured by Palin mania. 538 is a pretty interesting site otherwise.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Punchy:
It’s a monster from an H.P. Lovecraft story.
jonas
Palin will try to run, but she won’t win. She is tenacious — give her that — but ultimately I don’t think she has the attention span or leadership skills to pull off a presidential run. The real test will come when we see who the big GOP donors open their wallets for — it will be Romney. Palin’s campaign will sputter to an ignominious end in the early primaries as she becomes bored with the process, starts skipping campaign appearances, and runs out of money.
Dork
OT:
DONT MOVE TO ARKANSAS! Stay the fuck out of that hellhole of a state.
Damn, what’s next? Deer? Goats? Kids?
AAA Bonds
Nate Silver wants to know: has Palin hired enough Nate Silvers?
Chris
@Ross Hershberger:
Here’s a conservative pessimist’s take on it; a few people in the comments section promptly rebut it, but, it’s nice to read nonetheless.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/how-obama-gets-to-270-in-2012/?singlepage=true
Paul in KY
@SenyorDave: If that happens, Pres. Obama will have to ensure he doesn’t audibilly sigh at whatever drivel emanates from her.
It’ll be tough, IMO.
Ross Hershberger
Palin in 2012: my favorite subject. I think it will come down to her need to be the center of attention versus the GOP PTB’s fear of her lack of self control. And stupidity. She can’t sit on the sidelines and they can’t risk letting her near the ball.
Jinchi
@peach flavored shampoo:
No. Fox has hired most of the Republican 2012 players. They’re keeping their options open on a smart gamble. It’d be quite a political coup if the next president had literally been on their payroll.
Paul in KY
@Punchy: Say it three times into a mirror & find out :-)
Geeno
Actually, I think Palin will run in 2012, but not seriously. She’s got to keep her name out there to keep grifting after all, and she can blame her loss on the “Republican Establishment”. She gets lots free ink and another four years of “relevance” with very little effort.
arguingwithsignposts
@Ross Hershberger:
George Will wouldn’t recognize the truth if it came up and bit him on the ass.
singfoom
Speak not of the SheBeast of the North. Her and her accompanying Resurrected Know-Nothings are full of Sound & Fury, but signify nothing.
She doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the POTUS. She may run, but I think she’s poisoned the Republican establishment well and their intransigence will most likely stop her from actually winning the nomination..
If perhaps, she does win the nomination, she’ll screw up the race in a myriad of ways, with the problems outlined by the OP. “I don’t know anything but I trust my gut” is not a governing philosophy that works.
(Is it possible I’m completely wrong? Yes. I hope not. If the idiots do actually elect her, I’ll start a resistance cell.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Good god, but the commenters over there are confuzzled.
Punchy
@Steeplejack (phone): Can I use it in Scrabble?
Barney
Nate fails to mention that Palin quit as Alaskan governor, because she found too hard the job of governing a low population state so rich in a natural resource that it can give money to residents rather than tax them. Her excuse was that people were picking on her. Instead she went make lots of money for herself, and refused to talk to any non-adoring media.
This points to lack of ability, lack of stamina, lack of confidence, lack of humility, lack of loyalty, and an excess of greed. Any self-respecting PR firm should be able to get the typical Republican voter to think her pathetic. There may be some low-information, paranoid Republicans who identify with her, and are willing to think “if my Sarah thinks this is a good candidate, then he/she must be”, but there’s a difference between “does she have my thoughts, so I don’t need to bother thinking?” and “is she good enough to run the country?”
Anyone who thinks that what she had while governor and VP candidate was ‘being picked on’ has never considered what happens to a president. ‘Impeachment’ is inevitably mentioned these days.
eric
@Uloborus: I must disagree: her record of failure is no worse than the one W rode into the WH (Scalia’s help notwithstanding).
Ross Hershberger
@Chris:
Chris;
Thanks for that link. It’s a pretty good piece. And it’s good news.
Linda Featheringill
@Chris:
I went to pajamas and read it. Very interesting. It’s nice to see that somebody understands demographics.
I notice that the writer mentioned the DREAM act. He didn’t elaborate on why Obama might benefit from mentioning the DREAM act repeatedly but it was nice to read that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Punchy: It is a proper noun, so, under the traditional rules, you would not be able to do so. The rules, however, were changed in July of 2010 to allow proper nouns; therefore, under the new rules, you can. Link.
eric
@jonas: again, see W. he had none of those things either.
Palin can only be analyzed by reference to the electoral breakdown, just as with every other candidate. I see nothing, yet, that leads me to believe she is more or less electable that Mitch Daniels based upon a state-by-state electoral breakdown.
Culture of Truth
Christie is very much in charge, I’ll have you know!!
Mrs. Christie, that is.
Culture of Truth
@Geeno: That’s what I think. She will run, to keep her name out there.
liberal
OT: Glenn Greenwald points out on his blog that “Leading conservatives openly support a Terrorist group”.
Paul in KY
@eric: Until she quit the Governorship, I thought she had a better record of actually doing stuff than Shrub.
Ross Hershberger
I don’t think Palin’s real base is big enough to get her the nom. They make the most noise, but they still get only 1 vote each. She has huge negatives and low overall approval. That most accurately predicts her chances of electoral success. And the more exposure she gets the more people see what a dizz she is. Her trajectory is downward.
On top of that, she’s female. The GOP base is reactionary enough to give a significant advantage just for being male, so she’s got a gender handicap. I think she’ll try but she won’t get far.
Ash Can
@Geeno: I think this nails it. I’m expecting her to be the Fred Thompson of 2012. She’ll stay in just long enough to stir up a little scratch, then she’ll move on to the next shiny object/payout, whining excuses all the way out the door about how she was victimized.
God doesn’t love us enough for her to actually turn out to be the nominee.
Uloborus
@eric:
No, I must assert that it is – much worse. Bush was just smart and organized enough to run something into the ground. That’s why he was a disastrous president. He could indeed sell a war entirely for his own pride, and had the focus and drive to work on it from day one. In particular, he was an expert at the wealthy person’s crony system, where he convinced people to be intensely loyal to him and then put them in positions of power instead of choosing competent people.
Sarah does not have these skills. She’s a multiple-college-dropout. She not only abandoned Alaska, she did it ahead of multiple scandals of corruption and incompetence. Bush was at least able to pretend he hadn’t failed horribly. Bush could stand up in front of an audience and deliver a coherent speech, he just sounded like a good old boy who’s as deep as the shine of windex after you clean your window. Sarah is incoherent, and organizes the same way. In particular, Bush was very, very good at being handled. Sarah thinks she knows better, and people who work with her quickly come to hate her.
AxelFoley
OT, but I must say, my dear Mr. Cole, I do love your current taste in ads. Thumbs way the fuck up for ColumbianCupid.com.
eric
@Paul in KY: for her it avoided more failure and was not itself seen as failure. that is impressive!!
the dude was the son of a FORMER PRESIDENT and still ran EVERY business venture (including the country) into bankruptcy — that has to be a record that will never be matched. He is the Cy Young of business-political failure.
Stillwater
That’s exactly why the whole Palin in ’12 thing is interesting.on a number of levels, not the least of which is that watching a serious Palin run would be more entertaining than the best bad reality tv. But a little deeper, the populist (teatard) elements on the conservative side have shown that they’re a big enough block to push their guy, and by doing so marginalize the GOP old guard. That presents a lose-lose type scenario for the GOP: they may be forced to take her seriously simply to retain credibility with their base, even tho taking her seriously greatly undermines that control.
Culture of Truth
The GOP has a tendency, in the end, to nominate safe establishment types after the flashy candidates implode.
Still, right now, I’d say she has a slim chance.
cathyx
I feel confident in saying I don’t think she will run.
eric
@Uloborus: the only reason W was not a drop out is that Yale did not fail him out and his family’s social stature would not allow it. We will have to agree to disagree. He was a mean and petty and vindictive man.
The only difference, as near as I can tell, is his blood runs more blue. You and I will have to agree to disagree.
Sko Hayes
Barney’s right, Palin is a not ready for prime time player. She would be cooked in debates where they ask about the START treaty, free trade agreements, the economy or the wars (even though she reads “all” those newspapers!).
She could try to avoid the media and stick with Faux News, but that wouldn’t win independent votes, so she has to face a not too friendly media.
She barely made it through the McCain campaign, she wouldn’t take direction from experienced aides, she would zone out while trying to learn about various issues, and she had a very bad relationship with most of the staffers, as she is used to surrounding herself with worshipful “yes-men”, not people who disagree with her.
I’m stocked up on popcorn, waiting for the first debate.
Steeplejack
@Punchy:
Probably not. I would protest. But I’m not a fanatical Scrabble player and don’t know the rules down to the letter (er, so to speak).
Culture of Truth
Graham dissed her on MTP yesterday, saying he wanted someone electable.
He likes Thune or Romney. It’s the teeth and shoulders and hair.
Ross Hershberger
@cathyx:
If she’s not in the running then someone else is getting all of the attention. The primary season will be all about the win/lose stories of the real candidates and she’ll be a sideshow at best. I don’t think her ego will let her sit by while others hog the spotlight that rightfully belongs to her. She’ll do something for sure. I’m down on my knees to the FSM every night praying it’s a schism inducing 3rd party run.
Please FSM, I’ll be good forever if you do just this one thing…
stuckinred
Meanwhile the firebaggers are all over an effort to impeach Obama this morning.
Oh yea, for the “right” reasons.
eric
@Ross Hershberger: my guess is that she will not “run,” yet because no one will pull away during the early primaries, she can sweep in and avoid the handshaking in iowa and NH
catclub
@eric: “again, see W. he had none of those things either.”
What he had was: a) He was a hereditary member of the ruling class. b)He wrapped up the big money donors.
c)He could (or have Karl Rove) run a political campaign.
I Think (a) and (b) ar emore important than (c).
Omnes Omnibus
@stuckinred: What’s up with this?
cathyx
@Ross Hershberger: I think she loves 2 things. The spotlight and making money. She’s on a roll doing both right now. She needs to be in the spotlight to make money. She’ll tease and tease about the possibility of running right up until the point she actually has to make a commitment, then decline. She will be invited to speak everywhere and giving her base what they want and in turn, she gets what she wants; lots of money.
She will ultimately decide that as much as she wants to lead her country out of the despair that 4 years of Obama policy, she will say that she puts her children first and will not put them in the forefront of all the hatred from her critics.
Culture of Truth
I’m jumping on the Bachmann bandwagon now
Chris
@Geeno:
The problem is, if she runs, she has a very good chance of getting the nomination, what with the way the base adores her. And she can’t very well withdraw after that, which leaves her in the unenviable position of either losing the general election, or winning it and having to govern a country with a horrific economic situation. (Which she can’t solve).
Which is why, like I said, I wonder if some of the GOP old guard politicians aren’t secretly hoping she does run and win.
cmorenc
@MattF:
If such sanely rational awareness and calculation were succeeding in steering the hard-core of the GOP base, Sarah Palin would have been finished for good within a short time after the 2008 elections, when convincing stories emerged from McCain campaign staff and other GOP insiders about her destructively dysfunctional, grifting relationship with the campaign, compounding her already disastrous display of shallow understanding and unpreparedness during key moments of the campaign (e.g. the Couric interview).
When Karl Rove attempted to preemptively drive a stake into Palin’s aspirational heart on Fox News a few months ago, look how quickly he was forced to walk his talk back. That alone should tell you that at best, the GOP is going to find it more difficult to extricate Sarah Palin from her dominant position with the party’s base than the US Marines did trying to extricate the Japanese from their bunkered positions on Iwo Jima. The GOP establishment held their powder on trying to take Sarah Palin down back when they much more effectively could have, because she was such a useful inspiration for motivating the rise of Tea Party activism. Unfortunately, the GOP establishment is finding out the hard way that both Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are like the magical brooms in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” – once set in motion, they prove unexpectedly impossible to control or call off, no matter how counterproductive or even destructive they have become beyond their original intended benefit.
Chris
Glad the PJM article was so popular, y’all are quite welcome.
Paul in KY
@eric: Back before she was the ‘Quittah from Wasilla’, she had finally graduated from college (not helped out by super-rich parents), had evidently gotten a news-reader job (on her own merits, I guess) & had been a beauty pageant winner (without the judges being bribed, which would have happened if she’d been a Bush).
So, it seemed to me, she had actually done more stuff ‘on her own’ than Shrub had up thru 1st Governor term.
Did see Ulobrous post & he had some excellent points also. Too.
Brachiator
I don’t think speculation about Palin running for president means a thing. It’s not going to happen. Her assigned role by the GOP, assisted by the Robber Baron Rupert Murdoch, is to keep the Tea Party people and Republican faithful in line from now until the presidential primary season, when the actual Republican nominee will be inflicted on the nation.
I am going to laugh my head off when Rush Limbaugh, a faithful Palin apologist, pivots and throws his support to the real Republicans who will be vying for the nomination. Equally hilarious will be the endless rationalizations on the various conservative blogs about “why it has to be this way.”
And of course, someone will blame the Democrats. And the librul media, also too.
Palin herself may or may not be in on the joke when the rug is yanked out from under her. She might even mumble some noise about going Third Party Rogue. These efforts will go nowhere. She will get some commentator gig on Fox where she can continue to snipe at the Democrats without fear of contradiction, or information.
Otherwise, Palin is done as a bona fide political figure. If the GOP win, nobody is going to appoint her to any office, not even the ambassadorship of Gooberstan.
I suppose there is some outside chance that the GOP will lose its mind even more than it has already. I suppose there is even a remote chance that Palin will actually try to win the nomination. But right now, I rank the odds up there with the chance that space aliens will land at the stadium in Dallas during the Super Bowl half time show.
eric
@catclub: true, she has an entire cadre of folks that would walk over broken glass to get her elected.
I think she would lose, but i am not underestimating how soft the media would go on her to avoid being seen as too harsh.
I have not seen state-by-state polls on her. Sure, her negatives are high, but so what if that is skewed by NYT and Cal and other liberal bastions.
azlib
@MattF:
Why should she? She is making a lot of money being the Grifter from Wasilla. I do not think she will run. Being President is a lot of work and Sister Sarah does not seem to like real work.
eric
@Brachiator: rush supports rush and if that means supporting palin, he will do it. they are of a kind those two.
he sees himself as THE power broker and i can easily see him supporting her to show the GOP pols that he is still the boss and his ring needs kissing.
matoko_chan
@Ross Hershberger: Will, like Rove, Frum, Scarborough, Blow, etc, etc and every other
jesus-humperconservative is trying to basegank her, because she cannot win the general.…and they know it.She was not insufficiently vetted on her qualifications, but on her malleability. she simply woudn’t play galatea to Team McCains pygmalion.
cmorenc
@Ross Hershberger:
WADR, consider the recent example of one of the most reactionary, GOP-dominant electorates in the country – South Carolina, where a woman (Nikki Haley) was just elected governor of the state, defeating several prominent men from the state’s GOP establishment in the GOP primary. Not only is she female, she’s not even close to being racially/ethnically WASP; her parents are from India. Also, during the primary she had to battle allegations of multiple instances of marital infidelity and sexual affairs with prominent men-not-her-husband, in the immediate wake of the Mark Sanford scandal that had so deeply embarrassed the entire citizenry of South Carolina.
So, it’s not wise to be so certain that even some undoubted hard strains of sexual chauvinism and racism within the GOP electorate cannot be successfully dissipated for a sufficiently attractive female candidate with enough star-power wattage. The GOP’s chauvinism and racism can prove to be quite selective and inconsistent, even while it is very real as a general factor.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Wake me up when she announces her candidacy.
Ross Hershberger
@Paul in KY:
If that bar was any lower you’d need a back hoe to find it.
ericblair
@Paul in KY:
This is an interesting discussion in a Superman versus Spiderman kind of way. Yes, Bush got everything he had handed to him on a silver platter, but he knew how to be an Elite. Which, to a wastrel trust-fund kid, means knowing which of Daddy’s minions to run to to get himself out of whatever problem he got himself in, and when to shut the fuck up and listen to Daddy’s lawyers and bagmen or trust fund goes bye-bye. This translates directly to a big political campaign.
Both of them have an inherent feral cunning, Bush for nasty retail politics and Palin for chiselling money, but Bush was a native creature in the national political ecosystem and Palin just isn’t. She’s reality TV.
georgia pig
She’ll run because of her ego and because it gives her a legitimacy that keeps the grift going. Once the Repubs have a candidate, her twitter feed will start feeling neglected. She might win the nomination because the PTB don’t have anyone right now to knock her out. Their candidate of choice, Romney, has too many problems with the evangelicals and with his Mass health care legacy. No one else has developed a national following, maybe because they’re not suitable for the type of myth-making that Republicans fancy (Mitch Daniels? John Thune? gimme a break). My guess is they’ll back her in a losing effort against Obama to keep the base she represents in line for the real restoration in ’16. Their wet dream would be Petraeus, but he would probably be too moderate for the GOP base of 2012.
ant
The New York Times newspaper has effectively killed Nate Silver’s blog community.
How many weeks does it take to comment on one of his blog posts?
Fang
Don’t rule out the possibility that Palin could function if someone A) salves her ego, and B) runs a campaign for her. If she had a Rove-esque advisor of some kind that would be possible. I don’t see her having one, however. Well, not yet.
Brachiator
@eric:
I see your point, but Rush is no fool. His entertainment empire ultimately depends on pleasing the GOP, same as any of these other broadcast blowhards.
He talks a good game, but ultimately he is little more than one of the court jesters of the GOP. I don’t know, maybe his listeners would want him to continue to play the ideological purity horn. But no matter. He will support the eventual nominee, even if he sighs over what might have been had the Divine Sarah run again.
@georgia pig:
This is why the God of Republicans invented reality TV and Fox News commentator slots. Palin is making a very comfortable place for herself outside of politics.
And I can barely see Palin making a case for herself in 2012. By 2016, she will be less than yesterday’s political news for all except the diehard few.
It will also be interesting to see how many potential Palin supporters are still alive or sentient by 2016. Harsh, but her demographic already skews old. Younger cohorts may know her more as a tv personality than political figure.
Hell, her children may have more name recognition than Palin herself by 2016.
Yutsano
@georgia pig:
They’ll keep dreaming too. Petraeus has A) zero interest and B) too much of his military career to give up to run for President. Plus I bet Holly would object the exact same way Alma did to Colin Powell running.
Chris
@Yutsano:
Not too surprisingly, there was a conspiracy theory in the right wing blogosphere at the time McChrystal was fired that the whole thing was orchestrated by Obama in order to stick Petraeus in Afghanistan so he couldn’t run for office in 2012.
Jose Padilla
There is an element of the Republican Party who’ll see her as the ultimate empty suit, better even than Reagan or Bush, Jr. They’ll supply her with the organization and run it for her. All she’ll have to do is show up, give her speeches and smile prettily.
Svensker
@eric:
That is/was a HUGE difference between Palin and Bush, tho. Bush had the infrastructure to “succeed” even as a complete fuck up. The family and the family connections were always there to keep little Georgie out of the deepest doo doo — even to the extent of GWB refusing to attack Iran in his 2nd term, because I’m sure that his dad, Scowcroft, et al were filling his ears with the doom they knew would happen.
Palin is like Bush — ignorant and not real bright, but crafty and with a grifter’s eye for the main chance — but she doesn’t have that backup crew of money and connections and experience to help her out when she falters. The poo-flinging monkey crew do give her some back up, but they just can’t equal the blue blood network.
Calouste
I think the emphasis Nate Silver puts is wrong. It doesn’t matter as much whether Palin hires good or bad campaign staff. It matters whether she hires campaign staff connected to the PTB in the GOP or whether she uses the Wasilla high school yearbook as the main recruiting tool. Of course there is a quality difference between the two groups, but it will mostly show to the PTB whether she is willing to be handled or not. Bonus points for Palin hiring a veteran GOP campaign worker and sacking them within a month.
Calouste
@Chris:
__
She won’t know she can’t solve it, and even if she would have enough self awareness to know she can’t, she wouldn’t care.
liberal
@matoko_chan:
There’s that word again…
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I think she could be persuaded to hire a crack staff, but their first order of business would be to strip her of her, um, not sure what the right word is so I’ll just go with “charm”, and make her acceptable to the Establishment. That would be tricky, because they’d also have to show her killing animals every now and then to keep the base interested. It’s a tightrope, but if they could sell McCain as simultaneously a maverick and a fire-breathing conservative then it’s possible.
Bella Q
@ericblair:
This is entirely accurate, and may be the best succinct summary of the distinction between Palin and GWB I’ve read. Thank you.
Stillwater
@Calouste: Of course there is a quality difference between the two groups, but it will mostly show to the PTB whether she is willing to be handled or not.
Precisely. But there’s already good evidence that you can’t handle the Palin. I think she will gracefully decline to run by reminding her admirers of what she said when she quit Alaska: that she is a more powerful force for conservative values outside of office. Thing is, those rabid Sarahphiles may actually demand that she represent them. Given the cast of characters, it will definitely be interesting.
Nellcote
@eric:
A big difference is that LaPalin burns her bridges. Even as she’s standing on them.
Carol
Could there be a draft movement for Sarah? A group of people get together and do the work for her, and then she “accepts” the draft and runs.
Nellcote
@Jose Padilla:
But she doesn’t have the self discipline to do that.
lol
The most astute analysis for 2012 I’ve seen someone say has been:”watch what Huckabee does”: He’s the canary in the coal mine. If he runs, he’s running because he think Obama can be beaten, ideally by him. If he stays out, he’s going to let someone else get chumped by Obama and plan for 2016.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Three words: Rick Fucking Perry. Not Mittens, not Huck, not Caribou Barbie. Rick Perry is the one to worry about. If he runs (all signs are pointing that way), he will win the primary, and would be a genuine threat in the general.
He actually has a record that will appeal to the Republican base. He’s Texas’ longest-serving governor (contrast with the Quitta from Wasilla), Texas is a low-tax, business-friendly state, we’re among the more socially conservative states (the Lege is busy attempting to purge the current Speaker because he’s not an evangelical Christian), and we weathered the recession better than most of the country. He’s made some missteps (attempting to mandate HPV vaccinations got him in deep doodoo with both the God-botherers and the Purity-of-Essence crowd, and the Trans-Texas Corridor was a disaster worthy of an Irwin Allen movie), and God knows he’s no Rhodes scholar, but he has decent political instincts and has Obama’s gift for attracting really lame opponents.
Palin will flame out early on; her best hope is that someone picks her as a running mate again, which isn’t going to happen.
Cranky Observer
> I don’t think speculation about Palin running for
> president means a thing. It’s not going to happen. Her
> assigned role by the GOP, assisted by the Robber Baron
> Rupert Murdoch, is to keep the Tea Party people and
> Republican faithful in line from now until the presidential
> primary season, when the actual Republican nominee will
> be inflicted on the nation.
There are two problems here. First, it isn’t clear who is running the Republican Party at the moment. For quite a few years it was HW Bush, James Baker, and their gang, but I don’t think it is anymore. Nor could I tell you who has replaced them. Rove? Limbaugh? Goldman Sachs? The Cheney family? Not clear.
Second, the Palinites I have talked to are absolutely rabid in their support for “Sarah”, and they are in no mood to be dictated to by any smooth-talkin’ elites. Beck, Limbaugh, and Fox have contributed greatly to this state of mind. If Palin runs, her supporters turn out, and she takes a couple of early primaries then I doubt whatever is left of the GOP Establishment will be able to control her or her supporters no matter how many nasty shots they take on Sunday morning talk shows. Sometimes when you create a monster it gets away from you…
Cranky
Evolved Deep Southerner
@jonas: “Tenacious?” Please amplify.
CaseyL
@Cranky Observer:
That sets up an interestingly diabolical scenario wherein the autocrats who really run things here conspire to:
1. Have her killed
2. Blame the assassination on a liberal/gay/black/conservative target of the month
3. Use the Martyred Sarah to create a massive wave of public support for whoever the GOP nominee winds up being. That person will, of course, give an emotional stemwinder of a speech at the National Convention, vowing that Sarah Palin’s vision for America will never die.
4…. ride that wave into the WH
The more I think about this scenario, the more I like it. It’s about as Machiavellian/mephistophelian as you can possibly get, damages the country irrevocably, and leaves the autarchs in complete control of everything.