Okay, folks, prediction time: Will Sarah Palin seek re-election as Alaska governor? If she did run for a second gubernatorial term, that would make it difficult if not impossible to run for president in 2012, for a variety of reasons: a) she’d be dogged by questions about her future daily; b) she wouldn’t be able to spend much if any time preparing for the presidential run; c) she’d open herself up to a primary challenge; and d) even if she won, she’d have to turn around on election night and start running for president right away – creating yet another fertile avenue for attacks on her character.
Then again, Palin’s political skills anywhere outside of an arena packed with rabid supporters & a teleprompter are weak, and her staff has no idea what it’s doing. So I could see her thinking she could pull off both. If she has any sense, though, she’d wait until 2016 (she’s certainly young enough) and use a second term in the statehouse to repair her image and build up the team necessary to fight Mitt Romney.
But anyhow, I don’t went to delve too far into presidential politics on this site. Mostly I’m interested in the question I posed above. Please share your thoughts in comments & take the poll – it’s below the fold.
Loading ...
She runs again. She’s clearly ambitious, so I doubt she’s worried about being Governor and running for President. While I agree that waiting until 2016 might be in her best interests, I doubt she will. I mean, logically, Obama was young enough to wait out two HRC terms as well, but if it’s the right time, it’s the right time–and I think she’s delusional enough to believe now/2012 is the right time.
I’m not sure why everyone thinks Romney is going to be such a force in 2012/2016. He was never really that liked in 2008, and he will have been out of public office for five years by the time 2012 rolls around. This guy isn’t Reagan in 1976, having nearly beaten the incumbent president for renomination and biding his time until 1980. Willard only wishes to have that much heft.
Now, in my opinion, the MUCH more intriguing question is: does Pawlenty run for re-election? His re-election would be much more in doubt in blue Minnesota, and he has much more of a national blank slate than Palin, Romney or Huckabee.
I suspect the party will turn to someone new in 2012: Pawlenty, Jindal, Sanford, perhaps even Huntsman if they could stomach a “moderate.”
It won’t take much of a campaign to get her reelected up there anyway.
With regard to 2012 I see lots of Repubs thinking about it but very few making anything like a firm decision until very late next year. Some might leave it even later. They are all watching Obama’s numbers like hawks and that will override everything else. None of the prospective candidates want to be the second coming of Barry Goldwater but neither do they want to be Mario Cuomo.
Too time consuming and forces her to deal with troublesome local issues instead of positioning on national issues. Also the economy-driven budget crunches across the country don’t make for a fun time to run for governor.
even if it is clear she’ll be a Goldwater. She’s an arrogant fascist, who truly believes that God has chosen her to be dictator of the world, in otherwise a more charismatic version of Bush.
She’ll run for reelection as well, since she believes that Alaska will rubber stamp her ambitions.
I’m guessing Palin follows the lead of Rudy Giuliani and spends the better part of Obama’s first term running for president.
To me, a Senate run is too risky for Palin. Like Rudy, she knows that if she loses, her presidential aspirations are dead. Plus going into the Senate will not give her any greater stature for 2012 — she’d be a back bencher and any claims to greater experience or foreign policy standing would likely be laughed off by the GOP establishment.
However staying as governor doesn’t help her much either. She’d have to lie to Alaskan voters in 2010 and say that she wouldn’t be running in 2012. She already faces a much more hostile environment at home thanks to all the scandals that surfaced during the McCain run. And she doesn’t have a unified Republican party in Alaska to get her back. I’m expecting meaningful challenges from both the left and right on Palin if she runs for reelection.
Being unemployed has the most benefits for Palin. She can make money by writing a book or three and use book tours to raise her profile. She can go speak at Republican gatherings around the country, building loyalty and her brand. She can take advantage of her extra free time to do more than Governors Sanford, Jindal and Pawlenty – men who will actually have to be doing their real jobs while campaigning for President.
The bottom line is that for Palin, everything is always about Sarah first. What is best for Sarah? Not taking a political hit in a heavily contested reelection campaign and not risking career suicide by failing to defeat Lisa Murkowski in a Senate run. I think Palin is done in Alaska politics between 2010 and 2014 (I would not put it past her to not run for reelection, fail to win the White House, then run for governor again in 2014).
my guess, she runs again in 2010 and wins, not gonna guess at the percentage but upwards of 55. she passes up on the 2012 race, which she gets a whole slew of new publicity on wether or not shell run, etc, and lets the men like huntsman, romney, sanford and daniels duke it out. she challenges begich in 2014, when shes term limited ne way and prob wins, much to my chagrin, by a decent margin. after two yrs in washington she takes a stab at the 2016 race
I think a lot of the thinking in this thread is wrong.
I haven’t seen any info that says Palin has really been hurt by all of her “scandals” in Alaska. I’m pretty sure shes still very popular.
I don’t really think running for Re-Election and then running for President will hurt her at all. People always saw that hurts Politicians to run for one office and then another, but I really haven’t seen any polling or Election data to support that.
She might get a primary opponent, but It wouldn’t matter much, she would crush them.
I am no Sarah Palin fan, but I think people keep underestimating how popular she is on the right.
One last thing LOL @ whoever said the GOP will likely pick a moderate in 2012. Uhhhhh have you been watching the GOP the past 3 months? They are lurching right not left.
The Alaskan state legislature voted something like 37-3 to take all of the stimulus money Palin played politics with and wanted to turn down.
Supposedly she no-showed for a meeting with some key members of the state legislature too and then lied about it to the press.
then for pres. there is sort of a feud amongst the alaska gop (palin v murkowski, parnell v young, palin v murkowski jr?), but it all just seems personal. as long as palin doesn’t raise anybody’s taxes (frank murkowski’s unforgivable sin), she has the governor’s seat without breaking a sweat. and the idea that the press will be hounding her every day about whether she’s running for pres seems silly. what press is there in AK? they ask her once she says “i have no plans along those lines i’m focused on alaska,” the press says “well that’s not definitive,” she says “i might not be giving the answer you want me to give, but i’m focused on alaska” and then gives a cute wink.
the feud in the KS GOP or TX GOP is the kind we need to bust them up.
That said I bet she tries to do a twofer…
I think she has to run in 2012 – she has to capitalize on her momentum; same goes for Romney and Huckabee. Politics is a game of “what have you done for me lately?” and staying out of the game for 8 years won’t cut it for this group, as by then a new crop of GOP contenders will emerge and take their place. She will run again in 2010 unless it looks like she’d be in for an extremely tough fight (not likely), where in that case I think she’d drop out and run for President in 2012. She may end up being the sacrificial lamb for 2012 as she’d be delusional enough to think she can win and most other candidates would step out of her way rather than risk the wrath of her rabid supporters.
Barring something heretofore unforseen, she would win in 2010 easily. Not having friends in the legislature sure didn’t keep Mark Sanford froming winning a second term in SC. A second term is hers for the asking. The key is will she ask.
If she were running for Prez only, she would be making the conservative rounds more often. SHe is staying in AK, so that tells me she is hoping to boost her resume and cred with another election victory, before running for Prez.
See runs in 2012 because she knows she has to strike while the iron is hot, and for once she would be right.
She’s that popular with enough of Alaska that an acknowledged presidential run won’t mean a lost governor race. It’ll just be argued that Obama is eminently beatable b/c “everyone I know” thinks he’s awful, 2008 was McCain’s fault, and Alaskan interests are finally going to DC. She could probably get elected to most any political seat in Alaska. The only races that would give her trouble would be Lisa Murkowski’s Senate seat, Anchorage mayor, and some in the rural communities.
An Alaskan’s 2 cents.
A better poll with more options might have been:
a. Gov in 2010, then POTUS in 2012
b. Gov in 2010, then POTUS in 2016
c. skips 2010 to run for POTUS in 2012
d. other
——
I go with “a”. Because DavidNYC’s points against doing that are very good convincing reasons for any sane reasonable politician, but we’re talking about Palin here.