A Rasmussen Poll has things pretty much at a three way tie for a GOP 2012 primary. Rasmussen Reports:

They Say/We Say

The debate over Palin is sort of ossified.

The Left continues to ridicule her accent, family, and middling roots. The Right enjoys such authenticity-but enjoys even more the hysteria it incurs in liberals.

Will it Be Politics or Money?

But lost in all of this is whether she is up to national politics, or simply wishes to capitalize (an Oprah-like talk show?) on her sizable financial potential. On the one hand, Palin is obviously bright. Few could raise a family without capital in Wasilla, and within a decade end up as Governor of a large state-whose protocols hinged on an old-boy network where politicians accommodated oil and mineral interests.

On the other hand, a mother of five, knee-deep in local politics, without money and leisure, is not going to be reading Gibbon for perspective, or spending the afternoon perusing Foreign Affairs. Nor is she going to remember a quip that her Prof at the Kennedy school once offered years ago. Nor is she going to recall clever repartee at a Georgetown dinner party from one grandee to another.

She has natural gifts-stamina, earthy grit, sensitivity to what most Americans go through raising a family on a limited budget, practicality from working with her hands in a natural world. All that is no small beer. Look at Truman’s various experiences in Missouri.

No Way 2012-Maybe 2016, 2020?

But if, a big if, she decides to become a national political figure, Palin should use these next few years (in addition to making some money to support her family) to travel and read widely in the manner that a Reagan did in his wilderness period. She has natural intelligence and is curious. I think most would like to see her do another Couric interview five years from now after she had time to size up DC insiders, meet more politicians, lecture in front of hostile audiences-and just read and reflect. At fifty-five she could become a formidable candidate, given her natural charisma and authentic middle-class persona.

They All Resign-One Way or Another

As far as her resignation, it will be forgotten in two years. Politicians like William Weld, Bob Dole, Fred Thompson, and Bill Bradley have done it (to no real advantage).  John McCain and Barack Obama essentially resigned from the Senate by campaigning nonstop for two years (but while getting paid). In Obama’s case, it is hard to believe whether he was ever really working as a Senator, but instead almost began prepping for the Presidency (after swearing that he would not) as soon as he was elected.

So Why the Hatred?

A Huffington Post satirist offers jokes about her son Trig’s disability, and mental impairment in general.

David Letterman laughs at the notion of her 14-year-old daughter having sex in a dugout with a baseball player.

Andrew Sullivan offered up conspiracy theories about how her daughter, not Palin herself, “really” delivered Trig.

Maureen Dowd declares that “Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy,” and laughs at the names of her children, some geese-honking in the background during her interview, even the Piper Cub tiny plane near the Palin house.

Sarah Palin: It’s Her Party And She’ll Resign If She Wants To

It has been amusing to watch the speculation of the Alaska Governor’s motivations and future aspirations after announcing her resignation last Friday. Senate bid? “No, Alaskans would never forgive her for leaving them” said the Sunday shows. Presidential bid? “Not possible now,” say the smartest strategists and campaigners. Host a talk show? Sell books? Go on the lecture circuit? All possible, though not all probable. But the one thing most of the pundits on both the left and the right in Washington D.C. have declared certain - Palin’s political career is D.O.A.

Not so fast, my friends. Since we’re all engaged in wild speculation, allow the reading of one more set of tea leaves, if you please.
 
You can roll your eyes and tease Palin’s supposed lightweight intellectual status. You can bury your head in shame when Charlie Gibson peers down his nose through his reading glasses and stumps her with international policy questions. You may say she had no business on the national stage from the get-go last fall when John McCain announced her as his vice presidential pick. But what you cannot ignore, nor take from her is what she is about to seize on in a big way.The dirty little secret is the 2010 and 2012 Republican candidates in both houses of Congress need Palin now more than ever. They need her just as John McCain needed her. Conservative voters both independent and Republican don’t trust the crew in Washington. Historically it is true they never have when asked. But this is not your typical “throw the bums out” mentality fomenting at tea party protests of late. This is a time when long term blue dog Democrat and Republican moderate office holders are nervously wondering, “Just how real IS the anger?” Bailouts, takeovers, stimulus spending, aggressive energy taxes, and nationalized health care have this electorate frightened and angry. The public is paying attention to their every vote, and those that are on the side of the American taxpayer will be rewarded in coming elections.
 
Then there are those politicians who got it right most of the time, but voted to bail out car companies because, “American car companies going bankrupt would signal the end of our economy.” Or a personal favorite, “Well, sure, I voted to bail out Wall Street and the banks, but, can you imagine the kind of trouble we’d be in today if I hadn’t?” One shudders to think. (Tongue firmly buried in cheek, or course.)
 
Americans aren’t buying what Washington’s selling anymore, and politicians know it. Especially wary of this fact are the damaged Republicans who bought into the economic Chicken Little routine last fall. So just how does a Republican candidate whip up a base of support when voters are angry or suspicious of their voting history? Enter the most powerful motivator and fundraiser in all of Republican politics today. 
 
Name a Republican today who could draw a larger crowd, and encourage more checks to be cut to a political candidate than Alaska’s governor. Ex-presidents don’t count, by the way. But even if you included George Bush - I think she’d give him a race for the dollar. That said - go ahead, try it. Cheney? Romney? Pawlenty? Jindal? Rove? Steele? Rice? Powell? McCain? Huckabee? Ron Paul? Nope. None of them touch the pull of Palin. Remember, it’s not about whom you like personally. It’s who can raise the most money and draw the biggest crowd that matters most in this game.
 
You don’t have to like the unseemly truth of what Reagan called “the second oldest profession.” You don’t have to like Palin’s magnetism. Heaven knows many of the names just mentioned don’t. This one-term pony from the sticks is stealing their thunder. Plain and simple, this woman is not only a license to print money; she is the belle of the ball - the envy of the Republican political establishment. Palin has achieved a level of authentic, average-Joe appeal unmatched by any Republican on the national stage since Reagan and that is sexy as hell to a party who needs money and excitement now more than ever.
 
No, they’ll not say it publicly. In fact, they’ll dismiss her influence altogether if asked. But I’ll bet my house that the weekend voice mailbox of Governor Palin was full of begging, pleading Republican Senate, House, and gubernatorial candidates humbly requesting this “erratic, irrelevant, lightweight” to come stand at their side during their upcoming picnic/potluck/town hall/ cocktail fundraiser.
 
Perhaps the political chattering class is correct. Maybe Sarah Palin isn’t electable anymore. It’s highly doubtful that even came close to the top of her list when weighing the option of resigning last week. Sarah Palin knows she holds something more powerful than elected office right now. She has a consistent, unwavering commitment to celebrating American exceptionalism, freedom, and less government in the lives of every American. She now has the ability to hold each and every politician who calls on her for help to rise to her standard and maintain the integrity of the conservative movement. Put plainly, she will now determine the standard, direction, and message of conservatism going forward if they want her help. And there can be no doubt they crave her help.  
 
She holds popularity, trust, interest, and an excitement with a sizable national constituency who listen to her more than any public official today. She can write a best-selling book, turn out big donors, and virtually steal the spot light from anyone who shares the stage. Not bad for an “erratic, lightweight, quitter with no political future.”

Sarah Palin will be around and relevant long after those quietly begging her to save their political lives today. When she leaves office in a couple of weeks, she assumes the role of the Republican’s titular kingmaker. Call it “Palin’s Green Party.” Green - the color of envy and the color of money and oh, how she’s going to create both.

A Rassmusen Poll found the following today:

“Forty percent (40%) of Republican voters nationwide say Sarah Palin’s decision to resign as governor of Alaska hurts her chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination in 2012. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of GOP voters finds that (24%) believe Palin’s resignation helps her chances of winning the Republican nomination, while 28% say it will have no impact on the race.”

So why does the headline read:

“40% of GOP Voters Say Resignation Hurts Palin’s Chances in 2012”

Today a Rasmussen Poll has things pretty much at a three way tie for a GOP 2012 primary. Rasmussen Reports:

“In a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, it’s close to a three-way tie when GOP voters are asked whom they would vote for – from among a list of six prominent Republicans - in the 2012 party primary in their state: 25% say Romney, while 24% say Palin and 22% opt for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.”

Is this poll bad news for Sarah Palin? The answer is no. This poll comes right on the heels of Sarah Palin’s recent announcement that she will be stepping down as Alaska’s governor later this month. The media coverage by the liberal media and GOP Washington Beltway types has been typical and predictable; they are all claiming that Sarah’s decision is political suicide. I confess that on Friday I was even taken by surprise but I have since turned a deaf ear to the liberal media and GOP Beltway pundits and I thought things through. The Democrats were going to continue to hammer away at this woman for the rest of her term driving her legal costs into the millions, and remember she is not rich. Second, Sarah Palin has for some time now desired to play a major role in the 2010 primaries which really start in about 5 months from now. Third, if she wants to run in 2012 she has to move down to the “lower 48” to build up her political machine, her political IOU’s, and raise money. All of this takes time and Sarah knows this. I also believe that Sarah Palin wants to take over as the leader of the GOP and remake it in her Reaganesque conservative image, which she can do because of her huge popularity and influence with the GOP base.

A new USA Today/Gallup Poll was today released, but while the article paints a picture that does not favor Sarah Palin for 2012, nothing could be further from the truth and I will use Gallup’s own poll numbers to show this. Today Gallup wrote:

“When it comes to a potential presidential run, the USA TODAY poll displays both Palin's strength in the Republican base and her weakness among the swing voters who usually decide national elections. Republicans by 71%-27% say they would be likely to vote for her if she ran for president in 2012, while independents by 51%-44% would not.”

So how is this “good news” for Sarah Palin? Take a look at a finding by Gallup last month:

“Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.”

In 1980 Ronald Reagan went after and captured the 40% of conservatives by simply being an unabashed conservative. He also received 1/3 of the moderate/independent voters as well. So what was the outcome of Reagan’s strategy?

Now as of today prior to any campaigning by Sarah Palin for 2012 and after a massive smear campaign by the left she garners just under 75% of the Republican vote and almost half of moderate/independent voters. Folks this is in no way a bad political situation to find yourself in 3 ½ years before the next presidential election, These numbers are close to where Reagan was in 1980. Also, Sarah Palin now has three years to build upon her political base and win over more Republicans, Moderates, and Independents and I believe she intends to do just that.

By: Andrea Tantaros

Someone please tell me — what’s the big gamble?

Let’s see: She might write a book, make millions, and raise even more for the GOP?

She could end up giving killer speeches on issues of national importance that bring the house down and command the attention of a national media that only our current commander in chief can boast?

Or wait — she might actually run for the White House and, er, um, lose? (That worked out horribly for Hillary, secretary of state, “18 million cracks” Clinton, Nobel Prize winner/filmmaker Al Gore, and icon Ronald Reagan, to name a few.)

Most amusing are those who attack her for abandoning her office, a novel idea in politics. If leaving a position for a “higher calling” articulates the definition of reckless abandonment, most of the Obama administration is worthy of similar blame, including the president himself.

So why is stepping down such a volatile venture?

Win, lose, or draw, Palin is, and likely will remain, a wildly popular figure in the Republican Party, a movement that currently lacks a leader and is devoid of direction (besides “the opposite of whatever the tall guy with the teleprompter is saying").

Despite the Obama administration’s many stumbles and impending economic implosion, no Republican has managed to emerge as the conductor of the constituency. The old guard of the party is over. So over.

Whether Palin decides to become the conservative Oprah, a best-selling author, the country’s first female president (or all of the above) she is the next generation, the new guard, and the GOP’s MVP.

From a messaging standpoint Palin is perfect. She is also the only one who can reasonably argue that she hasn't been part of either the Republican or Democratic web of Washington politics.

No bailouts, big spending, or Buenos Aires lust romps.

Her fundraising potential is potent. Her support is solid from the right. She is poised to fill a leadership vacuum and there is no better time than now, when Obama’s numbers (especially with independents) are at the precipice of plunging. The iron is scalding hot and Palin, ever the shrewd politician, knows exactly when to strike.

Remind me — where’s her exposure again?

The country took a risk on a well-scripted, super-smooth, inexperienced, Ivy-League fancy lad junior senator. Since taking office he’s quadrupled the deficit, conceded our liabilities abroad, shoved us to the brink of a crippled, European-style nanny state, all the while increasing the unemployment numbers to the cusp of double digits.

See? The plainspoken, big-haired, conservative hockey mom who uses hokey animal analogies doesn’t seem like such a bad bet after all.

We don’t know precisely how Palin's wager will play out, but we do know that she pulled the political ripcord to advance her career as a Republican rock star, move conservatism forward, and harness her power to propel the problematic Grand Old Party back to greatness.

Washington Times

By Toney Blankley

Professional politicians and political journalists don't waste energy on political corpses. They reserve their energy -- positive or negative -- for viable politicians.

Thus, an intriguing part of the Sarah Palin phenomenon is the intensity of response to her every word and move -- from both Republican and Democratic Party professionals and from the conventional media. The negative but sustained passion being expressed by the professional Washington political class against her tends to belie its almost unanimous assertion that she is washed up.

I happened to be on CNN on Friday just as the story was breaking of Mrs. Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska, and for the next hour, I was the only on-air guest -- Republican, Democrat, journalist, politician -- who was not overtly contemptuous and dismissive of Mrs. Palin and her political future. On Sunday, as a panelist on ABC's "This Week," I was similarly situated.

What is it about Mrs. Palin that elicits such furious bipartisan Washington dismissiveness? After all, the polls show her to be tied with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee for the very early lead in the Republican primary. As an outspoken conservative with about 80 percent favorable rating amongst Republicans and a high-40s percentage favorable plurality among independents, objectively she should be seen as quite competitive nationally (compared to other Republicans, particularly given that Republicans generically are weak, and she has been so viciously targeted by the media).

Mrs. Palin draws by far the biggest crowds of any current politician other than, perhaps, the president. She was the only news phenomenon capable of knocking the Michael Jackson story off the cable news lineups. Impressively, while President George W. Bush was able to elicit a Bush derangement syndrome from liberal Democrats and President Obama has succeeded similarly with many conservatives, only Mrs. Palin has induced simultaneous derangement form both Republican and Democratic professionals.

At a time when governments around the world -- left, right and center -- are failing to gain the public confidence and even the winning Democratic Party in the United States struggles to match independents for the leading political category (while the Republican Party struggles to get to 25 percent to 30 percent market share), it might behoove those same party professionals who have been failing to connect their parties to the public to pause before calling Mrs. Palin an incompetent politician. Conventional wisdom may not be reliable in unconventional times -- or for unconventional politicians.

For instance, as the story was breaking Friday, fellow panelists were pointing out, on the air, how stupid Mrs. Palin was to put forward her big story on a late Friday afternoon before a three-day holiday weekend. Everyone "knows" one buries a story that way. It became my grim duty to remind my interlocutors -- in case they had not noticed -- that all the cable news shows were dropping their programming to switch to wall-to-wall coverage of the Palin announcement and that we were, at that moment, telling a national audience that the story we were discussing was being buried. The story persisted and expanded over the weekend, and my guess would be that if any political topic came up at America's millions of Fourth of July backyard barbecue parties -- it probably was about Sarah Palin. So, who's the fool?

Well, I have had the honor of working for two politicians before they rose to their heights (as well as during their heights) -- Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. And though they were vastly different men, both were considered, for different reasons, to be beyond the political pale in their earlier political years. If only Mr. Reagan could behave more like George Herbert Walker Bush, and if only Newt Gingrich could behave more like Bob Michel, maybe they could succeed better at elective politics.

So, last weekend, the professionals were confidently sneering that Mrs. Palin had made a fatal mistake by giving up the governorship of Alaska, because everyone knows an aspiring candidate for higher office clings to his or her current office while running for the next one.

Well, I'm not so sure being an incumbent is an advantage if the world seems to be going to hell and government is seen to be at least part of the cause for that journey. And though many a conventional politician might be seen as a quitter if he resigned from office -- I have a very strong hunch Mrs. Palin is constitutionally incapable of being seen as a quitter. Because she is not. She is constantly taking on the biggest challenge on her horizon.

Now, I am not endorsing her or predicting she will run or that if she runs she is likely to win. Let's wait a couple of years before getting to those questions. If Mr. Obama is seen by the public to be a great success as president in 2012, he probably will get re-elected.

However, if he is not seen as a great success, the public may be looking for a straight-talking candidate from the heartland who calls for and truly believes in limited government, maximum personal freedom and fiscal responsibility.

They may be listening for someone who knows how to talk to us - rather than at us or down to us. They also may respond favorably to a candidate who does not respond favorably to the Washington political class - nor it to her.

If the Demoncrats had any brains they would have left this women alone. Instead by constantly attacking her not only in the media but most vehemently by misusing Alaska's ethics laws against Palin in an attempt to financially break her so that she would not be able to play a role on the national scene in both 2010 and 2012. If they thought this would take her out of the game then they were badly mistaken, now Palin has pledged to take the fight to the Demoncrats in the lower 48 and she is now free from the main weapon the Dems were using against her. Thus to all the Demoncrats and RINOS who have attacked her I can only warn you here comes "The Northern Storm"!

Many pundits (most who were already dead set against her) have claimed that this unusual strategy will only harm her, but I think otherwise. I say this because now Palin is free to make as much money as she can in speaking fees, collect money for her PAC, campaign for Republicans nationally, become a leading voice against Obama, write her book, and build a powerful Republican machine for 2012.

As a former history major I can tell you that history remebers those who break the mold of how things are normally done. Great leaders break the rules, they are the true innovators and their opposition are always scratching their heads wondering what is coming next. I can assure you that the liberal media, Obama, the Demoncratic Party, the neo-conservatives who hate her, and any potential GOP candidate are scratching their heads wondering what Sarah Palin is going to do next. Sarah Palin is the kind of leader that history is going to remember, she is an innovator, she breaks the mold and defeats her enemies and crushes anything that stands in the way of her goals. Trust me "The Northern Storm" is coming to the White House in 2012. 

Sarah Palin's surprising move is just that, a surprise. Yet those who have long studied this woman's political career knows that Sarah Palin has always played by one set of political rules, her own and it has served her very well thus far.

There are certain facts that one needs to know which have contributed to Sarah Palin's leaving office. The Demoncrats were trying to and were somewhat succeding in crippling Sarah Palin with frivilous ethics charges, all of which were thrown out. This left Sarah (who is not wealthy)with a legal debt of over $600,000 and if she had stayed in power the Demoncrats would have continued this assult to financially cripple her and keep her out the 2012 race. In stepping down the Demoncrats can no longer use this avenue of attack. Financially this will help her because she will no longer be piling up legal debts and now she can earn a lot of money from speaking engagements which she can use to advance her move toward the White House in 2012.

Politically she will be able to spend far more time raising money for her political action committee and in campaigning for GOP candidates at all levels of government in 2010. From here she can build political alliences in every state. She may be hurt a little by her resignation, but not by much and she has the political skills to bounce back. Sarah Palin is now free to build up a national political machine to match the Demoncrats for 2012. She still owns the GOP base and now she has an extra two years to build on this.

Lastly, Sarah Palin seems determined to bring Reagan Conservatism back in the GOP, from which it seriously drifted away from under George Bush. In 2010 she can back true conservatives candidates who will not only share her political conservatism but they will also owe her a favor in the 2012 primaries.

These are some of the pluses in what she has done today.