Palin '12!

Bad news, comrades! The champion of Real America has slipped the chain and is threatening to go rogue:

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.

Every time Palin opens her mouth and something off-message comes out, McCain's numbers drop. And that probably suits his running mate just fine. What an astute move. She's so smart, I am sure glad she's not the top of the ticket, because then it would be "Obama who?"

The emergence of a Palin faction come as Republicans gird for a battle over the future of their party - and some see her as a charismatic, hawkish conservative leader with the potential, still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters. Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.

Yes. Sarah Palin is definitely "a charismatic, hawkish conservative leader with the potential, still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters." I think I speak for every liberal Democrat when I say I am absolutely terrified that Palin will be the GOP nominee in 2012.  We'd be destroyed!

Heh. Ha ahahahahahahaha. Sorry. Ahem.

"These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves," said a McCain insider, referring to McCain's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin's campaign. Palin's partisans blame Wallace, in particular, for Palin's avoiding of the media for days and then giving a high-stakes interview to CBS News's Katie Couric, whose sometimes-painful content the campaign allowed to be parceled out over a week.

This logic is iron-clad. Palin spent days in hiding trying to bone up on the issues, but clearly she is too dense mavericky to do anything but deliver folksy catchphrases. She would have appeared much smarter if they let her talk from day one. Right? And clearly Palin enjoys the attack dog role more than anything. The evidence supports the idea that the public is really interested in more personal attacks this election cycle, right? All they had to do is let her talk more about Obama's connection to people with dark skin, just like terrorists who have dark skin, and McCain would have had this wrapped up. You betcha.

"The campaign as a whole bought completely into what the Washington media said - that she's completely inexperienced," said a close Palin ally outside the campaign who speaks regularly to the candidate. "Her strategy was to be trustworthy and a team player during the convention and thereafter, but she felt completely mismanaged and mishandled and ill advised," the person said. "Recently, she's gone from relying on McCain advisers who were assigned to her to relying on her own instincts."

All this just goes to prove one thing: John McCain used to be a maverick, but isn't any longer. Sarah Palin is the true maverick. She's so mavericky, she realized McCain was no longer a maverick a millisecond after the convention, long before anyone else. She's the ultimate maverick, immune to coercion, restraint, prudence, education, facts, intelligence and common sense. She goes her own way. That's just what the country is hungering for: A combination of early-Alzheimer's Reagan and George W. Bush circa Katrina.

If McCain loses, Palin's allies say that the national Republican Party hasn't seen the last of her. Politicians are sometimes formed by a signal defeat - as Bill Clinton was when he was tossed out of the Arkansas governor's mansion after his first term - and Palin would return to a state that had made her America's most popular governor and where her image as a reformer who swept aside her own party's insiders rings true, if not in the cartoon version the McCain campaign presented.

"There are people in this campaign who feel a real sense of loyalty to her and are really pleased with her performance and think she did a great job," said the McCain insider. "She has a real future in this party."

Oh no! Not Palin in 2012! There's no way Obama can win a second term now. We're doomed.

Heheheheheheheh.

Comments

[Joe Klein's conscience]

Politicians are sometimes formed by a signal defeat - as Bill Clinton was when he was tossed out of the Arkansas governor's mansion after his first term - and Palin would return to a state that had made her America's most popular governor and where her image as a reformer who swept aside her own party's insiders rings true, if not in the cartoon version the McCain campaign presented.

I think Alaska realizes she isn't the reformer she claims to be. Besides, I think even the Republicans establishment in Alaska(if they hate her as much as she claims), will try real hard to take her out in 2010. I guess they also forget TrooperGate. Hhmmmmm!!

[Green Eagle]

Here's another issue that no one wants to talk about. Sarah Palin is 44, and she's had 5 kids. Four years from now, she'll be 48, eight years from now, 52.

Sad but true, lady: as soon as your looks start going, there goes the Joe Sixpack vote.

[CitizenTom]

Sarah Palin is the Katherine Harris of national candidates & not to be taken seriously. I know, I know - she is a reactionary with extremely dangerous ideas - but she has about as much chance of winning the Presidency office as I do.

The true object of our fear & loathing should not be the cartoonish Shrilla from Wasilla, but the wide swath of America that thinks that she represents the ideal national candidate (I saw a PBS poll a few hours ago that had her within two points of even on the question "Is Sarah Palin qualified to be US President?").

Palin will go the way of all failed conservatives (multiple divorces from cancer-stricken spouses, $1000-a-week prescription pill habits, pedophaelia and workplace sexual predation, and finally an anchor spot on Fox News), but her supporters will still be among us - to me, THAT is the scary part.

[B'rer Rabbit]

Oh PLEASE, B'rer Republican, don't go nominatin' that Sarah Palin in 2012. Us Democrats can't compete with that!

[mars]

God, how I pray that she's the Repub nominee in 2012. Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease!!!!!!

[ronin]

Another thing McFail didn't vet her on: apparently she has a history of ditching her patrons when it's in her interest. That's the real source of her maverick rep.

And I hope she runs in 2012- I want to see the coyote run over the cliff again.

[W Action]

Palin/Bachmann in 2012! That's sure to wrap up the independent women's and PUMA vote. Add in the millions of smitten MILF Republican men, fantasy gamers who respond to strong mother figures, and Christianists who (wink, wink) get it. Roll out solid support by righty keyboard commandos shooting sparks whenever the distaff team appears on TV and beltway boys and girls who know that deep down Republicans are honorable and just lost their way due to bad advice and I'd say the GOP has a shot in 2012. Unless Obama is, say, a good President. Then the GOP is screwed for a generation.