Don't Count Sarah Palin Out in 2012

I am certainly not pro-Saran Palin. In fact, I personally interviewed and reported on the story of the Duke Ellington Orchestra member who said that Sarah Palin has refused to speak with members of the orchestra when she saw their skin color (brown).

Some blogs are saying her resignation speech was terrible and will exclude her from contention for the Republican nomination in 2012, but I think they're probably wrong.

In spite of the fact that I don't like Sarah Palin anymore than I would have wanted McCain for president (see my Truth About McCain Blog), I think Sarah Palin's speech was actually pretty good.

She mentioned the troops and the military several times. She described the state of Alaska in glowing and engaging terms that would make people less resistant to having a president from Alaska.

Palin talked about her commitment to all of the issues are seen as most important by the extreme right voters who decide the Republican presidential nominee: small government, low taxes, helping and respecting small businesses, opposition to abortion, commitment to family (she said that was part of the reason she was resigning).

I actually think that, for what she was trying to accomplish, which was to announce her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, the speech was very effective. Remember: She's not trying to convince liberals, leftists or the media. She's trying to create a coalition of right-wing hate groups who will support her candidacy in 2012, and I think she's doing that. At least, I think her speech was a successful run at it.

Don't count Palin out. The very fact that she is known all over the Internet for disparaging Blacks and Native Americans will HELP HER with the Republicans who vote in Republican primaries.

She's got an entire dead bear in her office in Alaska, which gives her the 100% support of the NRA going in.

The other thing she did in her speech that proved she is running for president is that she said she would work with and support people from any political party if they had good ideas, which was Sarah Palin emulating the "broad tent" strategy that put Barack Obama in the White House. It's the same thing Barack Obama said. He said he was not interested in labels and parties and he invites everyone to the table to help make progress.

That's exactly what Sarah Palin says, and her emulation of Obama on this point is another reason why I think she is running for president and I wouldn't count her out of the 2012 Republican nomination.

Remember something else about a Palin/Obama matchup. Americans supported Obama because their memories of Bush were fresh and raw. But, Americans often prefer a president who is at least as lacking in intelligence as the voters he represents. Americans often prefer a president who says he will do extreme things; Ronald Reagan promised to send troops to South Africa to protect the "stability" of the Afrikanner apartheid regime.

Palin's probably the most exciting candidate the Republicans have, compared to the flip-flopping Romney, who was liberal before he was conservative . . .

I'm glad I live in Brazil so that I won't have to suffer Palin on television as president every day if the liberals turn out to be wrong about her attraction to the right and to the whites-are-rights.

If the economy is still terrible in 2012 and unemployment is still at ten percent, Americans might go with the other Party and elect Sarah Palin. If US troops are still battling rebels in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even Iran, or with no progress on Iran, then Americans may be willing to believe (or risk) that the foreign policy team Palin is surely building could be better than Obama's team.

Remember that when Ronald Reagan was running for office he constantly misspoke and said things that offended the media but helped round up the hate-groups that constitute the Republican Party.

Ronald Reagan ran for the Republican nomination in 1976 and lost. He ran for the Republican nomination in 1980 and won, went on to win the presidency. Don't count Sarah Palin out. CAMPAIGN to keep her out, and don't assume that it will be easy!