Saturday, August 4, 2012

Romney can't ignore Sarah Palin in 2012. The Tea Party champ is more politically relevant than ever!

The London Telegraph ^ | August 2, 2012 | Dr. Tim Stanley, Oxford University

Love her or loathe her (and those seem to be the only options), Sarah Palin won’t go away. Despite holding no office and having no obvious intention of running for one, she continues to dominate headlines and divide the country. So how will Romney handle her in 2012? Presuming that he won’t nominate her for Veep (the smart money is on a really boring white guy), what role – if any – will she take in the campaign? Should the GOP embrace the Palin effect or pretend it doesn’t exist?

Palin’s national role in the last few days reminds us why she matters. Last Sunday, Dick Cheney told ABC News that he thought putting her on the ticket in 2008 was a mistake because she wasn’t “capable of being President of the United States.” Cheney’s idea of a perfect ticket would probably be Cheney and Cheney, so we might put this one down to ego. But his remarks highlight the fact that Palin’s pick in 2008 is still relevant to the debate over the GOP’s strategy in 2012. The choice is this: do they run a moderate ticket that doesn’t offend anyone or take a risk on a radical ticket that angers some but motivates others? How mavericky does Romney want to be?
The evidence suggests that the maverick strategy didn’t work in 2008. Some will say that the Republicans chose the wrong maverick, and there’s no denying that Palin wasn’t yet ready for the media exposure. But a fair mind can never quite dismiss the Palin gambit out of hand because it was also tried in the wrong year. Frankly, the Democrats could have nominated Roseanne Barr in 2008 and the crazy lady would’ve won by a landslide...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...

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