Posted under Election 2012 & Politics & Republican Party & Sarah Palin
Franklin Graham made a lot of headlines based on his recent interview. This is one of them. He says Palin is not running. (More on the other headline he made in a separate post.)
I predicted here earlier that Palin and Huckabee would not run. I’m still sticking by my prediction on Palin, but I am not so sure about Huckabee. (More on the Huck later.) Palin’s star is fading in polls. She still has some hard core supporters, but she also has a lot of hard core detractors and not all of them are RINOs who don’t want a “conservative” carrying the banner. I think she knows she can’t win, so why run and diminish her stature by performing poorly in the primary? She can retain her present iconic status and stay in her good paying gig with FOX pontificating and “writing” more books without having to subject herself to the scrutiny of a presidential campaign. Or she can run, probably do poorly, and never again regain her current stature. Anyone heard from Fred Thompson recently?
Graham makes an interesting observation. He says she doesn’t like politics. This sounds odd, but may be more true than it seems on the surface. Palin probably likes politics in the same way that the writers and readers of CHT like politics. She has long been an activist as was her husband Todd. She ran for city council twice and mayor twice and governor once before stepping down half-way through her term. But this, and I certainly mean no disrespect, is small time compared to national politics. During the Presidential campaign and afterwords she didn’t seem to respond very well to the visciousness of a national campaign. (Not that anyone would or should.) She came across as thin-skinned, and just simply not used to not being liked. She ran for Governor of Alaska as a “good government” anti-corruption candidate and actually won some praise from a broad spectrum of the commentariate. She wasn’t prepared to become the poster child of Red America with the irrational hate that that inspired in the other side.
(BTW, Graham seems to be a surprisingly asute political commentator.)
Hotair: NY Sun: How about sending Palin to the Fed? | Katy Pundit on 25 Apr 2011 at 7:50 pm #
[...] [...]
Kirt Higdon on 25 Apr 2011 at 8:26 pm #
I too have said for a long time that Palin won’t run. It’s not exactly politics that she doesn’t like; it’s governing. She showed that when she resigned from the governorship of Alaska. If you can’t stand the heat in Alaska, where will you be able to stand it? Her decline in the polls has been caused by more and more of her supporters coming to realize that she will not run. I’m also less sure about Huckabee. It’s interesting to watch the little spat between him and Glenn Beck. What it’s really all about is the evangelical/Mormon divide in Republican ranks, but neither of them dare say that openly.
RedPhillips on 25 Apr 2011 at 8:58 pm #
“Her decline in the polls has been caused by more and more of her supporters coming to realize that she will not run.”
This is undoubtedly part of it, but I also think the bloom is off that rose. People rallied around Palin as a surrogate for Red America during and immediately after the campaign, but competing for positive support in a competative primary is a different thing.
Sean Scallon on 26 Apr 2011 at 11:05 pm #
“so why run and diminish her stature ?”
Because if she doesn’t run she has no stature. She’s just Sarah from Wasilla then, ergo no TV cameras. If she doesn’t run she’s pretty much finished politically.
RedPhillips on 27 Apr 2011 at 2:53 am #
“Because if she doesn’t run she has no stature. She’s just Sarah from Wasilla then, ergo no TV cameras.”
I think she can stay on as a commentator at FOX for the indefinite future just like Huckabee. You disagree?