It's all speculation on my part, but I predict that except for a book deal and a possible pundit gig on Fox, America has heard the last of Palin on the National Stage.

While she is qualified to be Vice President ("qualified" = over 35 and a natural born US citizen), there are dozens of Republican politicos who are more knowledgeable and capable of doing that job. The only reason she got the chance to run is because a whole lot of other GOP heavyweights saw the writing on the wall and declined to run with McCain.

The GOP needs to take a hard look at itself in the coming months. If they want to stay viable as a national party, they need to find someone else to be its figurehead.

You mat be right about SPalin but worry not about the Republican Party. Time will tell weather Obama is a strong, moderate Pres or the far left winger some of his proposed policies suggest. Remember, now the Franks, Dodds, Reids & Pelosi don't have Bush to blame thier horrible failures on so IF Obama doesnt tread carefully he and the Dems will be out on thier tails JUST like the fluffy Repubs are now. Glory is fleeting and so are some political careers.

T

I have $1000 that says you're wrong here.

Sarah Palin got thrown into the fire early - probably a little earlier than would have been healthy for her. But, you can't time your opportunities. She has had her stumbles, but you should probably know that her crowds at her rallies equaled the crowds Obama drew, which is unheard of for a VP candidate vs. the presidential front runner.

She's got that magical "IT", and she will be back, if not in 2012 (depending on Obama's status), then in 2016 for sure, but by either of those two dates she will have all of her kinks ironed out.

As Eugene Robinson said in the WaPost, you're gonna have Sarah Palin to kick around for a long time.

I really hope your right. She is a true, strong conservative and surrounded by the right people, will be a VERY powerful candidate. The Republican party (we) need all the help we can get!

You might be right. That's an awful steep mountain she'll have to climb, though. From what I've seen of her, in terms of leadership, ability to expand her base and inspire people (as opposed to just riling them up), and grasp of issues, she's just not there. Four years is a long time, but she's got a lot of work to do.

To all who find that Sarah Palin has "talent": what kind of "talent" are you looking for? Ideology aside, Palin is someone who looks good, can deliver zingers and is a right wing populist. She has revealed herself to have a stunning degree of ignorance on national policy matters (remember that she stated reading "all newspares"? Given all that, I could not imagine that she'd be able to attract more than 30-35% of the electorate and have the full backing of the GOP.

If you want a religious populist, the GOP should go with Huckabee. I don't know him well, but he certainly isn't that ignorant, and I'll admit that he has a truly charming persona. But Palin, so far, is one step short of future Pres. Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.

Her crowds equal Obama's. She drew 75K people in Celebration, FL for pete's sake - many of them saying how her example has expired them.

She has/had a 90% approval rating in Alaska, and I don't care how red or blue your district is, 90% is a number achieved only in extreme circumstances. If George Bush moved to Harlem and ran against Charlie Rangle, Rangle might not pull 90%. That is a clear sign of her being a a talented politician.

The highest Palin's approval rating ever got in Alascka was 80%. Remember that Alaska is very much a state where the Federal Govmt has a greater role than the state - owning, managing ans supporting most of the infrastructure. Most of what the state does is run schools and hand out Permanent Fund checks to residents. Its hard not to have a massive approval rating in such a state.

YET, as the details of Palin's governance in AK started to come out: her practices in Wassilla, Troopergate, her cronyism, her backstabbing on the OGCC (she went after Murkowski's money man because she thought Murkowski owed her the Senate Seat instead of giving it to his daughter), her approval rating started to slip dramatically. She lost something like 14 points of popularity in a mere 2 weeks.

Actually the Dems DO have Bush to blame. Precisely because this crisis took place during the GOP watch and because the GOP rank and file were the ones who opposed the initial bailout and had to be bribed with earmarks to vote for it, the GOP has handed Obama a ready made excuse if he fails to turn the economy around in a short time.

All the rhetoric about how this is the biggest financial crisis since the Depression gives him the ammunition to argue - regardless of how things turn out - in 4 years that The Depression took 8+ years to be overcome, so to expect to fix this in a year or two isn't realistic, and the last thing you want to do is to go back to the failed policies of the GOP halfway through the recovery.

As for Obama's proposals being "far left". If you believe ANY of his proposals are "far left" then you really don't have a clue as to what being "far left" means. You seem to think that the Dems are lefties. They aren't. They are primariliy centrists. Us lefties consider them to be too conservative for out tastes.

The problem you have is that you are so far right, that the center looks leftie to you. THAT is why the GOP lost so badly even though they were running against a black man with an arab sounding name. If this had been someone like WJC that you were running against, this would have been a Reaganesque landslide. That it remained close was because of racism and the invocation of terrorism.

Personally, I hope that folks like you DON'T learn that from this election. That you KEEP believing that Obama is a leftie. Because that guarantees your time in the wilderness

Palin won't be back. Her popularity in AK is actually going down, and with the fall of the price of oil she won't be able to keep "redistributing the wealth" she gets from oil money to the people. She was only popular because she was the VP pick. 

However, the main reason is that Palin only plays to a shrinking part of the GOP. The neo-con/christian conservative faction of the GOP is now officially dead. It has been rejected even by states that were once deep red. The GOP that will replace it will be more mainstream. It will be led by people like Jindal, Pawlenty, maybe even Romney and Huckabee. But the GOP will make darn sure Palin dissapears from the national stage real quick.

I don't doubt the GOP will be back. Look how quickly it fell. It doesn't take long in the US for a party to lose favor with the public.

Fred Barnes in July 2007 wrote an article where he said it was in the 90s, and a year later it was still at or above 80. I couldn't (in two minutes of google searching) find the source document. But I doubt Freed would goose an 80 into a 90 (what would be the point, really?)

And, of course her popularity took a dive after she was chosen as the VP candidate, and immediately set upon attacking Obama (which was her job). The Alaskan Dems were going to beat her down on that. I'm surprised it's still over 60-65%, that alone should speak volumes.

And, if it isn't, in your dismissive term, hard to have a good approval rating in such a state, how did she beat a sitting governor in the primary, and a former governor in the general (by 8 points)?

It's hard to get to 90%, and it is very hard to stay there (as both Bush's found out).

Let me clarify the above. She was only popular ON THE NATIONAL SCENE becuase she was the VP pick.

Huckabee is far farther tot he right on social issues than Palin.

Palin talked the social talk in the elections, but once in office, she hasn't gone near those issues. She is a realist on such things.

She'll be back - bet on it.

he won't get 8 years to turn it around. he won't get 4. He won't even get two. If there isn't some serious improvement, the Dems will take a bath on the mid terms. The population isn't as tough as it was in the thirties.

Which is actualy good - a Dem president and a Rep Congress is the historically best mix for economic success.

Oh, I think there were plenty of Dems that were bribed as well - any person who opposed it demanding goodies should be damned into hell.

headhunt, this is an actual question: where does Palin stand on social issues?

I remember her TV (Couric?) discussion about "advising" a teenager (in a rape case, or what was it?) to have the child. The specifics don't matter too much, just the fact that Palin couldn't commit to any principled or consistent legal stance re. reproductive choice (on the question of whether there sould be a right to choose in the discussed situation, she said sthg like "should someone go to prison for that? No, I don't think so"). If that is the level of moral reasonning that the GOP wants to produce, it really seems to be a bankrupt party.