Does anyone remember Quayle '96?

I think it depends on the midterms as well.  If the GOP somehow took both the House and Senate there'd be a lot less urgency

There is zero chance Palin will get the nod. Money men won't be throwing money her way, she would have to wow them with her own pitches, if they leave thinking she is a ditz, forget it. And as to the base, there are a lot of fundies there, a woman can play second fiddle but by their lights the President has to be a man.

And in 4 years she will be 48, and her flirtatiousness might start to get a little creepy, she will enter Farah Fawcett territory, from Babe to Boob.

But I would love to be wrong. It might very well be a 50 state sweep for the Democrats.

BH,

My thought exactly when I read this post.

Yes Palin has ginned up the Rep base during this short two-month period (of course she's had most of the rest of us running for bottles of gin), but somehow I don't see her wearing well over the marathon that is a presidential campaign.

Of course, perhaps after Nov 4th she'll disappear for a while, develop an actual policy platform on national issues, and re-emerge in a couple of years as a legitimate candidate. THe advantage she'd have over Quayle is that, since McCain is going down the tubes, she won't have 4 years in the national spotlight to reinforce the "incompetence" storyline. With the Potatoe incident and everything else, Quayle's reputation was baked in the cake and he never had a prayer of changing it.

Perhaps she does, although first impressions matter, especially when they are as high-profile as her's. So it isn't going to be easy for her to get the country to take her seriously after this.

Why do you say Republicans were not paying attention electability this year?   One could make a pretty strong argument that, had he managed his campaign better McCain was the most likely of the Republican candidates to be able to beat Clinton for sure, and possibly Obama as well.

Now the world is consumed with La Palin

Millions swoon at her winkin’ and railin’

But it isn’t a mystery

What her place is in history:

A footnote, just like Kato Kalin.

Any nation that elects George W. Bush, no more an idiot now than he's been since long before 2000, and then elects him AGAIN, can easily elect Palin or anyone else.

What concerns me, in fact, is that we have for some reason limited our Presidential selection process to a choice among qualified human beings. I intend to expand the pool by starting a movement to amend the United States Constitution to allow any representative from the subphylum Vertebrata (e.g., lampreys, natterjack toads, cormorants, opossums) as well as any piece of certain types of furniture (i.e., armoires, credenzas, hatstands) to serve as Leader Of The Free World.

I figure I can get two-third of both houses of Congress on board by no later than 2010, with three-fourths of the states ratifying by 2014 at the latest.

I--I get a little choked up about it, thinking about how in my lifetime we've watched the Presidency, once the exclusive bastion of white Protestant men, slowly open itself up to welcome the talents, ambitions, and dreams of the full range of the universe's corporeal entities.

Why, at this very moment there may be a humble yet earnest and plucky credenza, working its way through Tulane as a sideboard in a quaint Cajun restaurant in New Orleans, who one day will occupy the Oval Office. And it won't need a desk.

Blackton-I'm saving up money now to donate to her 2012 campaign.

I can think of nothing better to seal the fate of the modern Republican party and give Obama a 1984-like reelection.

Remember, many of the current Republican apologists for Palin are merely being loyal to the party. For every Christopher Buckley who has come out of the closet, there are many more who know exactly what a mistake She is, but will not desert the dear old GOP. In a primary all the internecine fury of competing Republicans will focus on destroying, rather than building, the reputation of the vacuous northern hairspray receptacle. It won't be hard for them.

[bows toward Wasatcher]

I hope she's around long enough to see her on "Meet The Press" and "This Week", and to pen an op-ed or two for the WSJ. It'd be absurd for her to just exit the scene without giving one hard-hitting interview.

She's a bit like those Broadway shows that come and go in a fortnight. The Daily Mail described "The Field of Ambrosia" ('96), maybe the worst musical ever, as "the biggest turkey, the floppiest flopperoo, the greatest slice of ham to hit the West End stage in years."

Sarah Palin, the floppiest flopperoo.

I think her future is closer to Scarborough Country than the WH.  She just seems made for TV and all the vacuous BS that goes along with it.

williamyard: You're too kind. Let me know where I can donate to the credenza scholarship fund.

To follow up on what Wasatcher mentioned.

How about those GOP pundits on air who voiced support for Palin post-Couric interview and said that she is qualified to be President?  How can anyone take any commentary they make from now on seriously?  Not that anyone with here actually would take anything they say seriously, but really aren't they just jokes now?  Shouldn't whenever they open their mouths and give commentary whoever is interviewing them or opposing their viewpoint remind viewers that this is the same guy/girl who told us that Palin was qualified to be VP so why should anyone believe them?  I know if I'm ever in a room with Bay Buchanan or any of the other idiots and they start spewing their usual crap I'll be the first to recall their support of Palin's credentials for VP to discredit them.

I don't hate to say it BUT Palin will not be a viable GOP nominee in 2012. Here is why I think she won't be. The GOP party as we know it today will shatter. It's already buckling under the very strains of ideological disarray amongst the "elites", the "joe-six-packs" and absurd vituperative blathering blowhards like Hannity, Dobbs and 'Papa Bear' O'Riley.

The intellectual suspicion and non-curiousness of the Base will further spread through the body of the GOP like the final tertiary stages of syphilis. The results are painful permanent ulcers on the body, lesions on bloggers, talkheads and on hacks. Tertiary syphilis begins to attack the nervous system, the heart and blood vessels that results in blindness, paralysis, and insanity. Palin will return to Alaska and fade into obscurity after trying to fluff her bonafides with a study abroad program as she and her husband build the Alaskan Secessionist Party into a new party. The Confederate Party of Dunces or CPODs. It's members known as Pod-people. Walking groupthink thugs, bigots, racists, and other knuckle-draggers of society. Sean Hannity becomes the Minister of Propaganda, O'Riley as the Minister of Enforcement.

As the GOP splinters the moderate and thoughtful conservatives will, for a time, find ideological sanctuary in the centrist Democratic party while the fringe folks who feel "pumped" up about Palin and her empty skirt-suit platitudes about "gittin' them thar bad guys we see from Russia because they like fly by and we don't let our neighbors Canadian do that to our economy likesay I see our patriotic mavericks do more talking the speak of maverickness as we challenge the corruption of politicians who don't support us' get the Base fired up with enough red meat to keep the zombie-like carcass of the GOP moving foward as Pod people. They win small state elections and send Minutemen to Congress to fight socialist programs like infrastructure, universal health care and the renewed threat of the Trilateral commission.

Meanwhile the Democrats flex muscles to enact progressive policies that are middle of the road and pull America out of the doldrums within a decade while the party moves center,  the far left folks split and become the active & vocal Green party and the Far Right...well they slowly rebuild after three generations of inability to function as a party that can serve more than two interest groups - the cultural conservatives and the corporate interests.

Fiction you say? Well remember kids...the Star Trek communicator was fictional until it became the cell phone and Captain Kirk had more hair when he dealt with the Wrath of Khan than when he battled the lizard in the Arena episode.

Yard,

What a disgrace. What makes you think a credenza would be an acceptable POTUS. It completely lacks the "stature" for such a position.

Now a nice armoire, that's another story.

Oh come on!  I'm buying the bumper sticker (even though I don't have a car).  We should encourage the Pitbull and her hateful supporters to do as much as they can to drag down the Republican Party.  

tjlinko, at least you don't support ottomans. As I'm sure you know, secretly they conspire for a return to the Ottoman Empire.

[rimshot!]

[wild applause!]

Oh thank you, just the best audience, thankyouverymuch...please tip your waitress, she's having my baby!...oh thank you so much...try the fish!...

Williamyard, let's just hope that William Ayers never touched that credenza. I'd hate to see the attack ads...

Yard,

I believe that was your finest moment yet. It's been bookmarked (how I hope TNR doesn't delete old posts.)

Hey, my China Cabinet is the biggest of them all, bigger than the Ottoman Empire. Hell, more people speak Chinese than any other so how difficult will it be for it to win?

I gotta warn you about crossing over to lock up 2012 vs. Palin.  In 1966, liberal former Gov. Ellis Arnall was the Democratic favorite.  However, several Republicans, smelling an easy win, crossed over in the (Open) Democratic primary to get arch-Segregationist nutter Lester Maddox nominated.  GOP nominee Bo Calloway won the popular vote, but not a majority because a write-in campaign for Arnall got 7%.  Rather than a runoff, the reswult, like for the Presidency, went to the GA General Assembly, which, dominated by Democrats, elected Maddox governor.  Be careful what you wish for.  Sometimes, you may get it!