October 1, 2011

Um, where's Palin?

Going somewhere?
No announcement was made by Palin on her decision to run/not run.  It was supposed to have happen in September.  That was her own deadline. Check your calendars, no announcement.  So what happened?  Is Sarah running or not.  Having firmly been in the camp of IS for the last several months, I'm about ready to flip to NOT.  Don't get me wrong, I think Palin would make a good candidate, I just think she's not going to run, and I think that's the case because events changed to make things seem less favorable for her.

Of course that's just a guess, but trying to predict Palin is something of a difficult task.  But she seemed poised to run.  She told Sean Hannity she had the fire in her belly.  When Donald Trump's surge faded and he dropped out, Palin might have missed her window when Perry joined the race and immediately vaulted to first place.  Of course he's since faded but he still has a lot of wind behind his sails.  Romney owns the establishment space and now Cain is surging.  Palin may have determined that she missed her window.  Then again, she may have changed her plan as a result of changing events.

One of the things I found most curious was her meeting with Donald Trump.  After he dropped out of the race he refused to endorse anyone until he determined who was in and who was out.  I speculated, but never blogged that perhaps they had discussed a VP slot when Palin and Trump met.  The Palin-Trump ticket would be a ticket of true outsiders and would have the advantage of attracting Tea Party members but also in a general election those who could be persuaded that both of them have no love for either Republicans or Democrats  - they are all about real solutions.  It's an interesting positioning.  And perhaps they were plotting an independent run all along.

But with Trump's baggage perhaps if they had made a deal, Palin might have reconsidered, because that ticket would have two major problems; (1) with Obama's polling tanking, the GOP have a very solid shot at defeating Obama.  An independent run would damage those chances considerably.  That would alienate Palin by allowing Obama to walk into a re-election against a split opposition vote (2) Trump's negatives might be much harder to overcome than Palin's own.  She may have decided the only way to get out of the deal with Trump is to not run this time.

It's all speculation of course, but that's all that is available when Palin herself isn't all that forthcoming.  She isn't helping matters any more by being coy.  There was a time when that worked to her advantage but that time is past.  Palin has to be clear about her intentions now.  Unless she plans to walk into a write in ballot at the GOP convention (an interesting consideration in itself), her path to a conventional victory is almost shut down. 

4 comments:

  1. My once-soaring admiration for The Governor has dwindled considerably from all this "will-she/won't-she" nonsense.

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  2. Mine too. My sense has become that she intends to run for something else instead if she is running for office at all.

    If the hold out is a strategy that no one has fully figured out and it works out for her great. But one only need look back last cycle in 2008 at Fred Thompson or Rudy Giuliani to see examples of unorthodox strategies that went down in flames.

    If she's got something to contribute she has to articulate what she intends that to be. Fox News contributor is underachieving for her (no insult intended to Fox), and as far as political capital goes that eats into hers if it's a shelter for the indecision. The indecision itself has clearly done damage.

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  3. I am so over Palin at this point. When I heard her say that she would announce her decision by November I just figure she is playing some kind of game. I realize it worked for Reagan, but he had a ground game in place beforehand and she does not. Things have changed since 80. November is not enough time.

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  4. Did she mean 2012? With primaries looking to move forward (New Hampshire is considering December) that's it. Her and Christie are both simply too short on time,

    If you bake a cake too long, it gets burnt.

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