Two assumptions:
Obama wins in November and Gov. Palin runs a good vice-presidential campaign (whatever that means) and is as impressive despite the loss as she is now.
Will she be the early leader of the Republican Party to take back the White House or does she retire back to obscurity in Juneau?
At this point in the 2004 election, how many people would have predicted that Obama would be the Democratic candidate in 2008? Four years is an eternity in politics, and it’s not really possible to make predictions for what will happen then. I do think that if she makes it through this election cycle without imploding that she’ll have the opportunity to stay in the limelight, but who knows whether she’ll take advantage of it?
That’s why I said EARLY leader. I guess what I’m asking is does she (unofficially) start her presidential campaign the day after the election or does she say it was great while it lasted and head back home?
Win or lose, VP is likely to be as big as she gets. Well, she might have a long career in Alaska. But I don’t know that she will be back in D.C. except as a Congresscritter.
I think it depends upon Obama’s popularity in 2012. If he’s still as popular as he is now, she’d sit out until 2012.
I thought that was all the buzz at the time.
-FrL-
… she’d sit out until 2016 :smack:
I think we’d need to see how she responds in the debates and in some hard interviews before we know how good a candidate she is.
She still hasn’t given a single interview to a news organization since her selection. Let her make a fool of herself on the Sunday talkies and then have Biden eviscerate her in debates and she’ll go back to being mayor of Wasilla and trying to ban books that she doesn’t like.
No. It’ll be Romney or someone like that. Just look at Edwards in '04 and '08.
qft.
Uh no, she’ll complete her term as Governor of Alaska, in which there is no report of any attempt to ban books.
Unless you think that a win for McCain means that Obama will go back to being a community organizer.
And after that, she’ll be lucky to win an election for anything as big as Mayor of Wasilla ever again.
The buzz was that Obama would be a contender for president someday, not that he would be a serious contender this year.
Think Dan Quayle.
Besides, what good would it do? You are merely putting lipstick on a [del]pig[/del] [del]pit bull[/del] hockey mom.
What brickbacon said. We still know very little about Palin as a campaigner.
That said, however, if McCain loses, a lot of the blame is going to be attached to Palin. People will say it was a rash pick, she wasn’t qualified, didn’t hold up under scrutiny, couldn’t appeal to women, whatever whatever. Largely that’s what some people will say now, but whether that’s the reason for the loss or not, a lot of it would get stuck on her, which would be a serious handicap. She’d be seen as a permanent lightweight.
Failed VP nominee is not a stepping stone to the nomination anyway. Didn’t work for Edwards, Lieberman, Quayle, Bentsen, Ferraro…
She will be (unfairly) blamed for McCains inevitable loss, this is the high point in her political career.
It depends – does the GOP conclude that Palin specifically or the Religious Right faction generally scared away the voters, or not?