Tick Tock Sarah Palin, Tick Tock

In?  Out?  Late?

Sarah Palin's window, realistic chance of winning the GOP nomination or not, is rapidly closing.  Her self-imposed deadline of September on a decision has a week left.  Beyond her self imposed deadline, she actually does have a bit more time - technically speaking.  But in reality, time is ticking by and with each passing day the prospect of a Palin candidacy is dimming ever more quickly.

The logic in waiting and letting someone else take out Rick Perry is strategically both brilliant and flawed.  She can avoid the limelight and the heat for as long as possible.  It helps her and allows some of the dirty work to get done without her getting herself dirty or bloodied in the process.  But the best consultants have all been cherry-picked and her supporters' patience has to be wearing thin by now.

She may want to see the impact of Levi Johnson's book slagging her before deciding what to do.  The fact that the other tell all book that will not go named here was dismissed by even liberals augers for a similar treatment with Levi, or slow book sales.  So waiting out that potential impact has it's merits too. But Palin must realize that there will be a next attack on the horizon after this book.  It won't go away.

Here window meanwhile keeps narrowing.  It's slightly narrower now than when you started reading this.  On the other hand, after trailing Obama by a wider margin than would a pirate with lime disease, suddenly she's within striking distance.

She's got to decide and soon.  My bet is that she already has decide.  With absolutely no one else considering jumping in, perhaps she's waiting for someone she thinks is going to drop out to do so so she can sweep up their campaign staff.  Bachmann might be a possibility.  If Perry were to tank in the next two weeks then she could pick off his team.  A brilliant act of political machinations would be to have some top tier candidate working with her covertly.  Imagine if Perry and Palin were working together and had already decided on the President and VP roles: Perry is in taking the heat and then as he steps out Palin steps in with the understanding that Perry would get the VP nod.  That would be political genius.  Except that's not what's happening.  

What purpose or leverage the waiting is serving is unclear if she is getting into the race.  If she's not then keeping people guessing is good from a media management perspective.  But if she's getting in, every day the positives of not announcing diminish and the negatives grow.  Perhaps it's not reached the tipping point yet or perhaps that point is passed and each day of wait is now doing more harm than good.  My sense is that latter situation while not spot on, may be closer to accurate than the former situation.  Tick Tock Sarah Palin, Tick Tock.