If she runs, she’ll have to make some changes – tone her voice down, make her rhetoric a LITTLE less combative, but I think she still has a chance. Many republicans think her candidacy would be a disaster, but are we really going to wait around for the republican to emerge that possesses unshakable conservative values, decades of relevant experience, proven leadership quality, an impeccable image, perfect speaking skills, and enough “electability” to appeal to independents?

One thing I believe – if the establishment repubs can somehow convince Sarah not to run, their chosen candidate had BETTER win in 2012, or it’s time for a third party. There will be NO excuse for failure.

My second thought was: all those commenters will be very surprised, won’t they, to see how many votes Sarah Palin can actually get. “But nobody I know voted for her!”

Time will tell. For my money, we tried a milquetoast candidate in 2008; Gov. Palin tried to bring up the ticket, but the MSM and Sen. McCain wouldn’t let her. I think the time has past for milquetoast; let’s go for fire in the belly instead.

respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline

Palin will be the next presidential candidate of the Republican party is she chooses to run AND is able to hold her own in the many debates that will precede and take place during the primaries. She will then have the opportunity to run HER campaign and demonstrate her smarts without being bridled by incompetents and malcontents. One thing for sure is that her many appearances on FOX and on her Alaska travelogue on TLC have made her more comfortable in front of the TV camera and, thus, a lot more polished. She is proving to be a lot smarter than most of the pundits are giving her credit for being and, most likely, will be the one to beat.

In a simplified world of no third parties or Perot-like independent candidacies, 3/8 will always vote D and 3/8 will always vote R. The game is fought out among the middle 2/8. (In some observers’ accounting, it’s 40-20-40; the game is played between the two 40-yard lines.)

The Republican will be Palinized no matter who is nominated, but to me, Palin has begun to approach unelectable (by the middle 2/8 or 20%), whereas the others are still electable. Palin has this way of giving them too much to Palinize, too easily (needlessly?).

And given how vulnerable is The One, I’m just not big on forfeiting when we could be rolling the socialism back. It’s terribly hard to undo whatever collectivization gets done. Let’s do something ^before^ it gets done.

Yep. The liberal definition can’t include honesty, which is just a sign of unsophisticated gullibility in dealing with a world stripped of all things sacred. Can’t be the least bit out of step with fashion as defined by pop culture liberals in charge of telling the collective what fashionable is. And they can’t have quirky things like independent thoughts that fall outside of what the collective deems acceptable.

The moment on last night’s episode of Alaska, when Sarah drove an ATV to her old friend Bones’s house, charged up to the elderly man, slapped him on the arm and screamed “WAKE UP” at the top of her lungs made me burst out laughing. This woman is so utterly unapologetic about her entire being. Nearly everything about her drives democrats (and some republicans) insane and she doesn’t give a damn. That shows a strength of character that is really rare and really admirable.

Do the so-called “electable” potential candidates (including minorities like Rubio, West and Cain) believe that they’re safe from the outright demonization that Sarah’s gotten? Here are the facts:

1. Liberals will not vote against Obama, no matter how horrible he is or how bad off the country is in 2012. They will ALWAYS return to the flock.

2. The republican candidate WILL be “Palinized” by the media. The lies and slander will begin to rain down as soon as the primary is over. Because Sarah was such a bigger star than McCain, it’s easy for republicans to forget how badly HE got trashed in the media. On The View, Whoopi Goldberg asked him point blank if he was going to make her a slave again. Of course McCain answered in the squishy and apologetic way that became his trademark during the campaign.

Sarah Palin has been through this and emerged more influential than ever. I don’t think any of the other candidates will be able to say the same.

But they aren’t destroying themselves. Not in pop culture media where the battle for hearts and minds is. I say let Sarah shake the boat and experiment. And she’s willing to take the arrows to experiment. God bless her courage.

For some (me included), they’d worn out their welcome a few minutes after noon, January 20, 2009, when The One treated us to still more of his “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” bloviating. For others, they’ll never have worn out their welcome.

If you mean welcome by the American public, it’s a matter of shifting proportions in the above. I’d say there’s been a pronounced shift towards “less welcome” among independents.