The scenario you constructed isn’t remotely plausible though. You cut the margin she lost by when on the bottom of the ticket in half when in fact her negatives have gone way way up since she lost. In the recent ABC/Washington Post poll I quoted earlier she would lose by SEVENTEEN points in a hypothetical matchup against Obama. If the same number of people vote in 2012 as in 2010, that would be a margin of 22.5 million votes. Is that plausible? I don`t know, but it’s a lot more plausible to use a recent poll than arbitrarily cutting her last margin in half - when her negatives have actually increased massively.
Also, remember that women are MUCH more likely to have a highly negative opinion of Palin than men are. There’s simply no reason to believe women would support her on the basis of gender when all the evidence shows women are actively opposed to her much more than men are.
Okay, guy, you can try to be cute, but frankly, I haven’t seen Palin have a meltdown.
I’ve seen her take a lot of hits from the media- most of them fair, a few below the belt, and suck it up. And frankly, talking about emotions sounds a bit sexist, doesn’t it?
Palin SHOULD be a non-starter because she doesn’t have the intellect for the job, but then again, neither did Bush, really. And I voted for the idiot twice.
But here’s the thing. We aren’t talking about holding the election right now. We are talking about holding the election in 17 months. 17 months more of 9% unemployment, there are going to be a LOT of angry people out there.
Remember, Bush-41 had a HUGE lead after the first Gulf War, but the drip-drip-drip of bad economic news finally undermined him.
Have you seen a lot of politicians make come-backs after 2/3rds of Americans said they definitely wouldn’t vote for them and that they think they’re unqualified for office?
You say “declared dead” like it’s just me saying it, or some pundit declaring it. This is someone who has been one of the country’s most prominent public figures for years and huge majorities of Americans are saying they would never vote for her.
Are you kidding me? This is the same woman who threw a shitfit after Family Guy tossed out a throwaway line about her. The person who, after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, tried to turn herself into the victim. One thing she has not done very well at all, is to “suck it up.”
The throwaway line was having a retarded character say “my mother is governor of Alaska”. Ha, ha, ha. Very funny, considering she has a child with Down Syndrome. (Seriously, who thinks the Family Guy is even funny?)
And yes, people were trying to blame her for a schizophrenic Marxist shooting Giffords. “Why look, she put a target on Gifford’s district. THAT must have set the guy off.”
Most REASONABLE people wouldn’t consider these reactions above the pale, really.
Now, I don’t like the woman, and I don’t think she’s qualified. But neither was Bush-43, other than his father held the job, and a lot of reasonable people voted for him.
The reason why Palin is such a threat is because to a lot of people, she feels genuine, as opposed to Romney who really hasn’t done anything that hasn’t been checked by an image consultant, a pollster and a focus group.
Once again, elections are decided by that 10% in the middle that votes based on who they’d like to have a beer with. Frankly, I’d rather have a beer with Palin than Obama.
Actually, she was added to the ticket because far right conservatives were unethusiastic about McCain.
But honestly, at that point, I don’t think anything was going to save McCain. Not with the economy in the state it was and the unpopularity of Bush over the war.
Fuzzy, I recall in 1983, Richie Daley came in third place for Mayor running against Harold Washington and Jane Byrne. Then there was a series of embarrassing stories that came out about how badly he had run the State’s Attorney’s office of Cook County, how they were knowingly sending innocent men to prison. By 1987 his reputation was so trashed that he didn’t even put his hat in the ring, letting Washington beat Byrne a second time. The fact he couldn’t put together a sentence that sounded coherent didn’t help, either.
Then he got lucky, Washington had a heart attack, and he ran in a special election in 1989 and won. He then won five more times, being the longest serving mayor in Chicago History (a title previously held by his Dad.)
I remember George H. Bush having an 87% approval rating and top Democrats were so scared of him that they opted out of the race. And then he got beat by an obscure governor from Arkansas.
The flaw of politics is that politics if fickle. Here’s the scenario I see where Palin COULD win.
She beats Romney in Iowa and SC, giving her momentum. Romney throws a bunch of money at the problem, just like he did in 2008, but it ends up looking like a rich guy trying to buy the presidency… well, pretty much like it did in 2008.
The economy gets worse. Maybe there’s a double dip in the recession. If that happens, the Republcians could nominate Satan and win.
The thing is, having posted on Right Wing Blogs, she is the only one who really gets their blood flowing. Romney, Pawlenty, they are all kind of “meh, who cares”.
Not saying it wasn’t in bad taste, but then again bad taste is pretty much Family Guy’s stock-in-trade. And that was pretty mild, compared to some of the other stuff they usually do - see their bit on prom night Dumpster babies. Throwing a hissy fit over the joke just brought it more attention, and people like Seth McFarlane crave attention, especially if it’s negative.
I agree that this was one of the few cases where she had a legitimate gripe against the media, but the “blood libel” crap was beyond the pale on her part. And using most of her response to play the “woe-is-me” card, when, you know, it was someone else that had been actually shot, and throwing out some red meat in a situation that called for introspection was just obnoxious.
And even if we agree that her reactions to both these incidents were justified, I don’t see how that constitutes “sucking it up.”
joe- Gee protecting your family from personal attacks…
Frankly, that’s the kind of thing that makes her palatable to the red meat faction of the GOP. The one that gets upset when Obama goes around bowing to people.
Palin did herself no damage with the people she targets as supporters.
I really don’t think it’s possible for her to even win the nomination. She will show well, no doubt about that - her base is fervent, and as Recovering points out, many of things she gets mocked for are actually assets with them.
But a fervent base only gets you so far. Lets say your potential path comes true (she wins in Iowa and SC - maybe with something like 25-30% of a highly-divided vote). After this, many of the marginal candidates will drop out, leaving something like Palin, Romney, Pawlenty (perhaps), maybe Rick Perry if he decides to run. By the time we get to Super Tuesday it will pretty much be down to Palin and not-Palin (and I think who that candidate will be is up for grabs). And that’s where the high negatives in her own party kill her - there just aren’t enough “second choice” Palin votes out there, IMO.
In the end I think she knows this, and is perfectly happy in her current role. But I know the OP was making the assumption that she decided to run. I could also see the above scenario be playing itself out with Bachman in the Palin role.
Never underestimate the woman’s ego. I’ll bet running for President is a lot of fun, especially at the start. Bunting and banners, people holding signs with your name on them, waiting for hours in the cold and the dark in New Hampshire, waiting to see you and to hear you speak; the crowds cheer, the bands play, the balloons drop. She surrounds herself with people who have no problem with who she is and try their best to do whatever she wants, who appear to take her seriously and tell her how wonderful she is. Aw, yeah, baby!
Oh, and a big fat Doper Welcome to the new Doper guests we have visiting us. Hope you sign up!
Because Obama will be on the ticket? There is a reasonable argument to be made that a large number of new voters showed up in 2008 specifically to vote for Obama (the so-called “Disaffecteds”). Whether they show up in 2012 will go a long way to determine the outcome, but certainly it’s more likely that they’ll show up with him on the ticket than in an off-cycle election.