A Palin Candidacy?

I’m pretty sure that I haven’t missed an announcement, so I guess that Sarah Palin has yet to declare her candidacy for the Republican nomination for President. This makes me wonder whether she is actually going to do so.

In a sense, it might be wiser for her not to declare and sit this one out. The field for the nomination is crowded, and there are already two slightly loopy candidates in that field – one of who looks and sounds a lot like Palin but with the added advantage that she didn’t fuck off half way through a term as an elected representative. To some extent Palin has been out-manoeuvred by Bachmann. Furthermore, if Palin runs and fails to even get the nomination, then her brand of simplistic redneck nonsense will be damaged. She won’t such a hot ticket if her record reads “National Elections Fought: 2. Won: 0”.

Then there’s the fact that Obama, while weakened, still looks like the most likely victor from next year’s general election. He has the massive advantage of incumbency and the fact that, while he’s been a disappointment to many, he hasn’t been an absolute catastrophe and his policies are only truly execrable to those who wouldn’t vote for him under any circumstances anyway. Palin is unlikely to win the nomination; she’s also unlikely to win the White House even if nominated.

There’s a sense in which it would be better for Palin to wait for 2016, when there’ll be much more of a level playing field. But then she risks the fate of Hillary Clinton in 2008 – of being a presumptive nominee for so long that the idea of her candidacy becomes boring, and the space is therefore created for a more charismatic stalking horse to come along and steal the nomination and, maybe, even the White House.

So in a sense Palin is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. So I reckon she should go with the latter option. Continue the Sarah Palin show across America. Then again, I’m biased as I think that the idea of President Palin is utterly terrifying and should be avoided at all costs…