She seems to think her leaving would be a good thing for Alaska. Why not
take her at her word?

It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. She would like to run
in 2012, but the knives are out for her in the GOP. She cost a lot of
people their careers. If it weren't for her, they might have been able to
elect McCain. No matter what is said publicly, the people running the GOP
are well aware of that. She ripped them off for hundreds of thousands of
dollars in clothing and expenses--money that might have made a difference in
some tight congressional races.

They needed a professional. She's a diva. All her flaws were easily
discovered if they'd ever bothered to do any background research on her.
It's their own fault for not vetting this person. Who does that? They
tapped her for VP and never checked her references? They got what they
deserved.

People blame McCain for his poor judgment, but the fact is that he really
wanted Joe Lieberman. McCain was told in no uncertain terms that he
couldn't have a Jew, much less a "Democrat." He was informed that if he
tried, there would be a floor fight at the convention and Lieberman would be
rejected.

At that point, he acquiesced to Palin's boosters. It was obvious from the
body language when they rolled her out that these two people didn't even
know one another. (It didn't help that for the first week or two, he
couldn't stop staring at her ass. Ewwww.) It's a legitimate
question--since he wasn't even in control of his own campaign, who would've
been running the country?

A few days before Palin bailed on Alaska, Vanity Fair ran a lengthy
post-mortem, much of it asking McCain's staffers "What were you thinking?"
and them responding "We have no idea."

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908?currentPag\
e=2

Scary to consider this person might have been one Ambien overdose away from
the presidency.

I don't think the GOP establishment will allow it to happen. They've been
burned. More likely they want her to be their useful idiot. She draws
crowds. She excites the base. She can raise money. They'll keep her
around for all that, but even they have to realize she must never be allowed
to govern. Give her a book deal, give her a reality show (the GOP *is* a
reality show at this point), just be sure never to give her power. She
isn't wired for it. She's quit every job she ever had, as soon as it
stopped being fun.

The thing being, the GOP base loves her. She has a 70% approval with them,
even after everything. The problem for the GOP is that only 24% of the
country is willing to identify themselves as Republican, and nobody else
will vote for her. Toward the end, her appearances began to look, sound and
smell like Klan rallies. She didn't seem to mind. She never said one word
to stop it.

Nobody else wants to play on that team. Her most ardent supporters are
precisely the people who repel most of the country. How will she ever get
around that?