Oh, come on now. You know deep down that a Palin run in 2012 will provide endless amounts of comedy and media stupidity, with the end game being a 10 point beat down on Election Day. Then she can give one last primal scream of a concession and go on to a lucrative career as a professional victim of DFH’s and the MSM. It’11 make the 12 mil she pulls down now seem like pocket change.

Suggesting that Palin wants to run is probably good for her prospects, but there’s no way she’ll do it. Palin is very short-sighted, and I can’t see her going for the long con in this case. She’ll stump for some Tea Party-approved candidate and then resume her hunt for the next jackpot.

She has truly become the Madonna of politics—shepherding a thimble-full of talent into a money-generatin’ (snow)machine. The future? Who’d have predicted Madonna would still be infesting the media after twenty years?

We’re well and truly screwed. People will project themselves onto a shape-shifter like Palin with no encouragement whatever. I don’t think it matters what she actually does, so long as the (preapproved) cameras are pointed at her.

Who’d have predicted Madonna would still be infesting the media after twenty years?

Excellent point, Trollhattan. They’ll probably pipe “Material Girl” into my nursing home by and by, forcing me and my fellow codgers to pull our own goddamned plugs.

Yeah, I’m with Betty on this one.  I’m reasonably sure that Palin won’t win the nomination, assuming she even runs, and that if she does become the Republican candidate, the result will be Goldwater-style loss, squared.  But—I’m not sure.  Because you never can be.  Not absolutely.

They’ll probably pipe “Material Girl” into my nursing home by and by, forcing me and my fellow codgers to pull our own goddamned plugs.

That does it Betty, now I’m going to have to research the option of drinking myself to an early death.

Uhhh, I vaguely remember from the US History classes I took a million years ago that Washington finished his terms and retired.  Palin quit mid-term and went off to earn over ten million dollars.  Just because someone wants to compare herself to George Washington doesn’t make one like George Washington.

(FWIW, I don’t think she’s running.  Too much work, too little money.)

As an ex-office-holder and a non-candidate, Sarah enjoys the notable advantage of being utterly unaccountable for the consequences of the confusion and anger she seeds with her oracular tweets and sniping Facebook pronouncements.

Neither does she have to exercise any actual leadership, since it’s simpler just to serve as a feedback amplifier for prevailing Tea Party sentiment, formalized and repackaged under the Palin brand.

Failures of the GOP can be blamed on RINOs and corrupt Democrats, while momentary successes in challenging or stalling Dem initiatives are automatically credited to her by her fans, even though the actual trench-work is being performed by elected representatives whose political calculus is painfully complicated by real-world variables such as mixed constituencies, fickle backers and the potential for jeopardizing Congressional alliances, pet legislation and Federal funding to their home states.

From the safety of the sidelines, Sarah also doesn’t have to match wits with Putin or Hu Jintao or the interim leadership of Kyrgyzstan, which currently has a choke-hold on US access to Afghanistan. She doesn’t have to strategize the US response to Greece’s looming debt default, or walk the tightrope between supporting Israel and maintaining a unified Sunni Arab bloc in opposition to Iran, Syria and the Shi’a resurgence in “liberated” Iraq.

If Sarah were smart, she’d realize that the worst thing that could happen would be to win the election for POTUS, at which point she’d be expected to deliver on all of her high-flown, hitherto risk-free rhetoric. But, judging from past performance, that’s a ginormous “if.”

@StrangeAppar*us

The notion that some people think she’s qualified to do any of those things makes me weep for this country.

If Sarah were smart, she’d realize that the worst thing that could happen would be to win the election for POTUS, at which point she’d be expected to deliver on all of her high-flown, hitherto risk-free rhetoric.

Ya see, that’s the problem.  I don’t think that her current high-flown, hitherto risk-free rhetoric would be any different than how she’d actually govern as POTUS; she’s Dubya the Bull in a China Shop on steriods.  I’ve got quite a bit of experience with Xtians of this sort; what you see is exactly what they are - delusional, but driven by Jeebus and therefore never, ever wrong.  And that is damned scary!