UK: Betting against Palin

The Guardian

The smart money says Sarah Palin won't run in 2012

Palin is all about brand management, so why would she risk a good business in a gruelling campaign that'll be hard to win?

By Paul Harris

The Republican race to get the 2012 nomination has barely begun, yet it already has its fair share of casualties who have fallen by the wayside.

First, there was Haley Barbour, the good ol' boy Mississippi governor, who was widely expected to run – even by his own staff – right up until the moment he pulled out. Then, Donald Trump's bizarre campaign fired itself. Finally, Mike Huckabee, who topped a lot of Republican polls and was favourite to win Iowa, declared: "All the factors say go, but my heart says no."

Which leads one to wonder: who might be next to take a dive and pull out before they even get in?

Sarah Palin looks a good bet.

The media is still gagging for her to go for it, especially as other colourful candidates who are fun to follow step aside. This week, the political blogosphere got all excited about a potential Palin run after she sent out a direct mail appeal for her SarahPAC fundraising group. It contained the magic words:

"Now you and I must fix our eyes on 2012. Our goal is to take back the White House and the Senate."

But that was about it. When the whole thing was read, the mailing seemed pretty standard and focused on helping other conservatives to run – not on building up Palin's own credentials. Which is exactly what Palin's SarahPAC is intended to do. For anyone desperately looking for signs Palin was prepping for her own campaign, it offered pretty thin pickings.

Which should surprise no one. While a Republican victory in 2012 is far from impossible, it does not look easy. It especially does not look easy for Palin. She is rising in the polls again, post-Huckabee, with a recent Gallup survey putting her just behind former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. But much of that appeal is based on her name recognition alone, which in an increasingly narrow and little-known field counts for more and more, even as it is worth less and less. In those terms, Palin getting just 18% support hardly makes her formidable.

She remains a divisive figure, like Barbour or Trump, who could appeal to a narrow but loud section of the Republican party, but who knows winning the vital middle ground is going to be a hard stretch. Indeed, Palin has noticeably faded away from American public life in recent months. In the wake of her ill-thought out comments about a "blood libel" in the wake of the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gaby Giffords, Palin has kept a low profile. She still posts updates on her Facebook page, or gives interviews, or sends emails to friendly journalists, but she is not the hot topic of national conversation that she was for much of 2010.

It seems likely Palin is surveying the same political landscape that Barbour, Trump and Huckabee saw – and is drawing some of their negative conclusions. She has little appetite for the nitty-gritty hardcore campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire that the genuinely committed candidates – like Romney, Tim Pawlenty, New Gingrich and Rick Santorum – are already doing and which lasts for months on end. Palin also knows from her own experience how brutal the scrutiny of the media will be for any leading Republican candidate and, perhaps, especially for her. But if she runs, she won't be able to avoid it. The national press will camp out in Wasilla, yet again. She will not want that.

Like Huckabee, she has became rich and famous on the back of the failed 2008 campaign. Books, speeches and TV shows seem to offer a lot of power without any of the tiresome reality of running for office. Especially in a race that looks so hard to win.

Also, if she loses – either the nomination race or against Obama – she will seriously tarnish her credibility. America will forgive many things, but a two-time loser? Not so much. Better to be a might-have-been than a never-was.

Of course, she may surprise us all. Perhaps Palin will jump in to a contest in which she will be the undoubted rockstar. But my wager is no. She'll keep everyone guessing for a while longer and then join the list of Republican big names who have already decided to sit out this fight.

To vote in the Guardian's poll go to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/18/sarah-palin-republicans-2012