Why Palin shouldn’t run in 2012

Some will say that the first hurdle is winning the nomination and that, should the economy continue in deep recession, that anyone at the top of the Republican ticket would beat Obama. Therefore, Palin is right to worry about appealing to the “base” first and then deal with independents and Obama later.

My answer to that would be that under the “economic doom” scenario, Palin might very be the only mainstream Republican Obama could beat. Think of it this way, if things are truly that desperate in 2012, is America really going to dump a guy who at least has four years of Presidential experience for a person who has none, who “quit” her job as Governor of a small state, and who they have been told over and over is not very bright?

You see the problem with coming up with a scenario where Palin could be Obama in 2012 is that the worse things get for him, the less likely that the country would be to take a chance on her.

The same phenomenon exists should Palin be seen as responsible for a huge Republican congressional victory in 2010. This is because should Obama lose his congressional majorities (or at least his large margins) the fear of a far left liberal with a run away congress will be greatly dissipated and actually increase the chances of Obama getting reelected, no matter whom he runs against.

But what about the notion that all of the old rules have changed and that, thanks to Palin’s immense celebrity (arguably the equal to Obama’s), anything is possible for someone of her stature?

Well, there is no doubt that her celebrity power keeps her theoretically viable to do literally anything she wants, except the problem here is that huge portions of public believe, wrongly, that they already know the real Sarah Palin and these people will not be shown anything at all that could even hypothetically change their minds about her until a general election. By then, with the power of incumbency and the vast majority of the news media behind Obama, there would simply not be the time, resources, or perhaps even the opportunity to change the huge number of minds that would have to be altered in order to get Palin 270 electoral votes. And again, are Republicans really going to run against an over-hyped, inexperienced, charismatic celebrity by nominating someone who is already thought of exactly that way by at least half of America?

It seems to me that the only way for Palin to get a legitimate second look by the people in the middle is for her to not run until 2016 at the earliest. Should she decline to run (ideally immediately after leading Republicans to a perceived victory in 2010) she would help kill off the perception of her as overly ambitious and she might even endear herself to the party leadership by saving them from an almost certainly brutal and destructive presidential primary.

Of course, it is very important to point out that something like this may already be Palin’s plan (for the record, I have shared almost all of these thoughts with her via her personal e-mail but have received no response). So far, I have not seen one shred of legitimate evidence indicating that she has decided to run and some serious indications that she won’t. If she really possesses the personal qualities that I have been claiming she does, then she will realize that it is not in her, her party’s, or her country’s interest for her to do so.