Sarah Palin, tantalizing for 2012

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've written again and again and again that I don't think Sarah Palin is running for president in 2012.

And yet she keeps throwing it out there, tantalizing her supporters and worrying many in her own party who are smart enough to know that she'd be a disaster.

As she tells Barbara Walters in an upcoming interview:

I'm looking at the lay of the land now, and... trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing.

She also believes she could beat Obama. (Yes, she's crazy.)

Now, look, a lot of this is obviously Palin wanting to remain in the spotlight, and the best way to do that is to keep dangling the possibility of a presidential run in front of a credulous media establishment that watches her every move and hangs on her every word.

And, of course, she keeps giving herself an easy way out: She'll run if no one else does (that is, no one else she approves of), or if she's asked to do it (appealing to her supposed sense of public service), or is, as we see here, "the lay of the land" is right for a run. Ultimately, she could just use the excuse that her family wants her to stay home (or on Facebook and Fox News and at tea parties) or that someone she likes is in the race and worthy of her all-important endorsement.

The thing is, my assessment (or prediction) assumes that she won't run because she'll come to realize that it's not in her best interests to do so, that is, it assumes that she'll act rationally. But there is hardly any guarantee that she will, and, indeed, given what we know of her, it is perhaps more likely that she'll do what's irrational instead.

I've acknowledged this already:

Sure, she might run, and she could be talked into it, not least if the sycophants who inhabit her little bubble appeal to her massive ego and delusional belief that she's divinely qualified to be president, but I really do think she has too much to lose and that it's better for her, and her quest for ever more fame and fortune, to remain a sort of celebrity kingmaker within the Republican Party. 

Right, she has way too much to lose. But what if she doesn't see it that way? What if her egotistical delusions get in the way? What if she convinces herself, perhaps with the urging of her sycophants, that America needs her in the Oval Office (and that she really can beat Obama, even if so much of the country is against her)?

Well, then we're headed for a Palin run and I'll have to admit that I was wrong. In the meantime, though, stay tuned (if you must) for a lot more dangling. She ain't going away anytime soon.