Hail To The Moose, She's The Moose So You Must Hail Her

Frank Rich sees President Palin in our collective future.

If logic applied to Palin’s career trajectory, this month might have been judged dreadful for her. In an otherwise great year for Republicans she endorsed a “Star Wars” bar gaggle of anomalous and wacky losers — the former witch, Christine O’Donnell; the raging nativist, Tom Tancredo; and at least two candidates who called for armed insurrection against the government, Sharron Angle and a would-be Texas congressman, Stephen Broden, who lost by over 50 percentage points. Last week voters in Palin’s home state humiliatingly “refudiated” her protégé, Joe Miller, overturning his victory in the G.O.P. Senate primary with a write-in campaign.

But logic doesn’t apply to Palin. What might bring down other politicians only seems to make her stronger: the malapropisms and gaffes, the cut-and-run half-term governorship, family scandals, shameless lying and rapacious self-merchandising. In an angry time when America’s experts and elites all seem to have failed, her amateurism and liabilities are badges of honor. She has turned fallibility into a formula for success.

Republican leaders who want to stop her, and they are legion, are utterly baffled about how to do so. Democrats, who gloat that she’s the Republicans’ problem, may be humoring themselves. When Palin told Barbara Walters last week that she believed she could beat Barack Obama in 2012, it wasn’t an idle boast. Should Michael Bloomberg decide to spend billions on a quixotic run as a third-party spoiler, all bets on Obama are off.

Of course Palin hasn’t decided to run yet. Why rush? In the post-midterms Gallup poll she hit her all-time high unfavorable rating (52 percent), but in the G.O.P. her favorable rating is an awesome 80 percent, virtually unchanged from her standing at the end of 2008 (83 percent). She can keep floating above the pack indefinitely as the celebrity star of a full-time reality show where she gets to call all the shots. The Perils of Palin maintains its soap-operatic drive not just because of the tabloid antics of Bristol, Levi, et al., but because you are kept guessing about where the pop culture ends and the politics begins. 

But here's the problem with that:  at some point, Sarah Palin has to commit to run as a candidate in order to be a candidate.  And the second she does that, the GOP explodes. Independents would rather eat their own entrails than vote for her.  Most importantly, they'd rather vote for Obama.  The Republicans will kill themselves over Palin/Not_Palin as candidates.

Second, I don't see Bloomberg running in 2012.  He's smart enough to know that he'd be a disaster as President, with no real power and 90% of Washington out to fillet his ass.

Third, Palin has to run.  She has to, because her ego will not let her hold back in the position she has now.  She lacks discipline.  And that lack of discipline means she's going to get crushed from all sides.  She can play the media game.  She's going to get nuked by the politics.

But it's going to be a hell of a show.