It is clear that Sarah Palin is seriously considering running for President of the United States.  There are a lot of people who hate Sarah Palin and many so-called “experts” doubt she could get elected.  Depending on the poll, and the poll questions, her negative rates sometimes approach 50%.  There are very powerful movements, within both political parties, trying to destroy her candidacy before it begins.  The main stream media is trying desperately to paint her as unqualified to be President.  Republicans are equally concerned and just about every day one of the talking heads opines that she is unqualified to be President.

I do not know if Sarah Palin will run for President.  In some ways, I hope she doesn’t, primarily because Sarah Palin would probably pay a higher price for this than any other Presidential candidate in history.  She has already been subjected to the vilest personal attacks and these attacks have included direct personal assaults on her children.  The only thing certain is that the attacks will continue, they will become more vicious and the main stream media will become even more irresponsible.  I am not concerned over Sarah Palin’s ability to withstand this assault; she has already demonstrated that she is more than up to the task.  I just think it is unfair to expect anyone to endure this kind of treatment.

But it would be a huge mistake to assume she will not run and it would be an even bigger mistake to assume she cannot win.  We have already had a case study of what is likely to happen in the event she chooses to run.  The case study was Bristol Palin’s performance on Dancing with the Stars.  When the show began, most “experts” were predicting that Bristol would be the first person cut.  That did not happen.  She wasn’t brilliant, but she also wasn’t terrible.  The liberal media tried to portray her as some self-centered diva, but that didn’t work.  It soon became obvious that Bristol Palin is just very real and very normal.  She didn’t try to pretend to be anything other than herself, she kept her mouth shut and did the best she could.  A lot of people found that refreshing, particularly when compared to her opponents who were all professional entertainers. 

Suddenly, people realized that Bristol Palin had a chance to win the entire competition.  At that point the liberal blogosphere came unglued.  One guy even shot his TV in disgust.  They invented some bizarre tea party conspiracy and became convinced there had to be major voter fraud in action.  The liberal left cannot comprehend that a lot of people really like people they despise.  They hate Sarah Palin.  They hate anyone associated with Sarah Palin.  They cannot comprehend the concept that people would judge Bristol Palin based on what they saw with their own eyes.  A lot of people, including a lot of Democrats, decided they liked Bristol Palin.  She ended up making it to the finals and came in third.

What happened with regard to Dancing with the Stars really matters with regard to a Sarah Palin run for President.  The only thing certain is that there are going to be a lot of Republican candidates for President.  Sarah Palin’s base support is rock solid and it is a significant percentage.  As long as there are several other candidates, she is always going to be one of the top vote getters. She may not win, but she definitely won’t lose.   Her supporters are her supporters and everyone else will split the remaining vote.  This is exactly how Bristol Palin survived the early stages of Dancing with the Stars, when she frankly did not perform very well.  Her core support was solid and the rest of the vote was split.  Later, when she performed remarkably well, she gained additional support.

As of now, the following people have been “mentioned” as possible candidates for the Republican nomination for President.   I will put them in Alphabetical order:

Haley Barbour                                                           Governor of Mississippi

Mike Bloomberg                                                       Mayor of New York

John Bolton                                                               Former Ambassador to the UN

Scott Brown                                                              Massachusetts Senator

Jeb Bush                                                                    Former Governor of Florida

Chris Christie                                                            Governor of New Jersey

Charlie Crist                                                              Former Governor of Florida

Mitch Daniels                                                            Former Governor of Indiana

Jim DeMint                                                               South Carolina Senator

Newt Gingrich                                                          Former Speaker of the House

Lindsey Graham                                                      South Carolina Senator

Mike Huckabee                                                        Former Governor of Arkansas

Bobby Jindal                                                             Governor of Louisiana

Gary Johnson                                                           Former Governor of New Mexico

Fred Karger                                                              Gay Rights Activitst

Bob McDonnell                                                         Governor of Virginia

Sarah Palin                                                                Former Governor of Alaska

Ron Paul                                                                    Texas Representative

Tim Pawlenty                                                           Former Governor of Minnesota

Mike Pence                                                               Indiana Representative

David Petraeus                                                         General

Mitt Romney                                                             Former Governor of Massachusetts

Wayne Root                                                               Libertarian Candidate

Marco Rubio                                                              Florida Senator

Rick Santorum                                                          Former Senator from Pennsylvania

John Thune                                                               South Dakota Senator

Donald Trump                                                          Businessman 

This is not even the entire list.  This list will be quickly winnowed down to size.  The initial cuts will be made primarily on who is unable to raise sufficient cash.  If you can’t quickly raise millions of dollars for your campaign, you have no chance of staying in the contest.  Following are the people who “won’t” have that problem. 

Mike Bloomberg

Mike Huckabee

Sarah Palin

Ron Paul

Mitt Romney

Donald Trump

Here are the people who may have trouble raising funds, but do have good name recognition and that could change:

Haley Barbour

Scott Brown

Jeb Bush

Newt Gingrich

Lindsey Graham

Bobby Jindal

Tim Pawlenty

David Petraeus

Marco Rubio

Rick Santorum

Note:  I didn’t put Chris Christie on this list because I don’t think he will run.  If he does run, he could run the table. 

Unless something unusual happens, the rest of the list is unlikely to raise enough money to compete for very long.  Obviously the potential field is way too crowded and will need to be cut down quickly.  The first step in the process will probably be some straw polls.  I do not know who will win those polls, but Sarah Palin will always be in the hunt.  She may not win any of these straw polls, but she will survive.  Ultimately this will probably get down to about four or five candidates.  Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee will probably be in the mix.  There is also likely to be another, more conservative candidate and possibly another, more moderate (think liberal) candidate. 

But here is the reason why Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have to be very afraid.  The only way someone is going to take that nomination away from Sarah Palin, if she decides to run, is if she ends up in a one on one contest where those people opposed to her unite behind one candidate.  In a three way contest she will pull about 40% minimum.  History has shown us that neither Mitt Romney nor Mike Huckabee is likely to give up his dream of being President until it is too late.  In effect, Palin could pull a McCain.  McCain never had a majority of Republicans supporting him; in fact there were probably a consistent majority who opposed him.  But, since this was a three way race, with conservatives split between Romney and Huckabee, he ended up with the nomination.

So, while I am not predicting Sarah Palin will win the Republican nomination, particularly this early in the race, she has at least as good a chance as anyone else.  Then the question becomes whether or not she can win the Presidency.

I like Sarah Palin, but I would not consider her to be my first choice to be the next President of the United States.  I would prefer a candidate with more executive experience.  Even if one believes that Barack Obama represents their values, he clearly is naïve and incompetent.  We are paying a terrible price for that incompetence.  Next time we should be careful to elect someone with the leadership and experience necessary to do the job.  In addition, Sarah Palin may be more valuable working on the outside.  But, compared to most of the other candidates, and certainly compared to Barack Obama, Sarah Palin is definitely qualified. 

It is extremely easy and unwise to underestimate her.  What is most remarkable is that unlike all of the other candidates, she does not have a huge staff.  For example when she appears on Fox News she does this in her own studio in front of a television camera operated by her husband Todd.  There doesn’t even appear to be anyone else in the room.  Yet she answers question, even on complicated topics, quickly without hesitation.  I do not know of another politician who is equally capable of doing that.  She is a very rare commodity in national politics, she is her own person.  Sarah Palin says what she means and she means what she says.  She does not need a professional staff to help her determine the best position to take with regard to important issues.  She recently said that if she does run for President, she will not rely on a professional campaign staff.  Perhaps that is because she cannot find anyone more capable of understanding the key issues. 

The best way to tell which player is great is to watch how the other team responds to them.  For example Barry Bonds was possibly the best offensive baseball player in history.  He was so feared that on more than one occasion the other team walked him with the bases loaded rather than let him hit.  They would rather give up one run than four.  The same is true in all sports.  Watch which player receives the most attention from the other team and there is the real super star.

Democrats are not bothering to attack obvious front runners like Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, but they are attacking Sarah Palin.  That tells you everything you need to know.  They know who they need to fear.  As long as the main stream media and the Democratic Party continue to attack Sarah Palin, you can bet your bottom dollar that THEY think she is a real threat.  If they ever stop talking about her then and only then should she be concerned.    

 TDM