Sarah Palin's All-or-Nothing Gambit

Sarah Palin is taking an extraordinary risk in stepping down as Alaska Governor now, but on the other hand it does free her up to lay the organizational groundwork for
2012. Sarah Palin is also known for marching to the beat of her own drummer, and not behaving in a manner typical of groomed and packaged politicans. As she puts it, coming from Salmon country, "the only thing that goes with the flow is a dead fish".
For many, including myself, Sarah Palin has been , is and hopefully will continue to be a breath of fresh air.

There is a real double standard out there now: How is it that Barack Hussein Obama
can come out of the Illinois state senate and get elected US Senator in 2004
and immediately start campaigning for the presidency with no questions
whatsoever being raised?

That said, Sarah also had to free herself of the constraints on what she
could say or do as a governor while watching her back for every frivolous
legal challenge the Dems were going to throw at her which would have
bankrupted her, and kept fher from her duties anyway. The Dems have not been
more frightened of anyone since Ronald Reagan.

Sarah Palin is also in the position where, if she gives up, and decides to fade
away instead of going for the brass ring, she risks giving scumballs
like David Letterman the victory. Essentially, she has become the role model for
young conservative women. If she bails out because of the heat, it sends the
message to the Lettermans of the world that all you need to do is make
sexist comments, even ones that target underage members of their families, and they fold up like a house of cards. Of course, liberal women are "off limits" . To bail would
send the wrong message, but to come down to the lower 48 and make a run at
the presidency will galvanize her supporters. And many non-conservative women might be inclined to join in solidarity with her because of their experiences with slimeballs like Letterman.
With Hilary Rodham Clinton out of the picture, Sarah Palin is the best hope out there, not only for breaking the glass ceiling, but also to restore the lagging fortunes of the United States, crumbling under the weight f Obama's socialist policies.While the radical feminsit
leadership will rage against her, many women have been hit with sexist comments
and behaviour will be drawn to her if she stands up to Letterman and co., so do not underestimate this factor.
The biggest risk though, is that in 2008, she was rightly able to claim that
she was more experienced with executive functions than the community
organizer from Chicago, and she wasn't even running for the top job. Now that she has declined to finish her term, and Barack Hussein Obama will have had a term as president, she will no longer be able to make the claim. However, the community organizer has been such an atrocious president, so bad that he even makes Jimmy Carter look good, it may not matter.

As fo how it will affect the plans of others, one can only speculate:
Mitt Romney will attack her for not completing her term as governor, while he
can claim that he completed his term as Massachusetts Governor. Moreover, he does have a stellar record in the private sector as well. I think that had he won the nomination, as the economy became the issue, this would have been recognized, and grating personality
notwithstanding, Mitt Romney would have been elected in a landslide in 2008.

Mike Huckabee: If Sarah runs, the social conservatives will get on board with her, and he will be disadvantaged from from the outset. She is much better financed, however Huck can claim 2 1/2 terms as a successful governor, so don't count him out. If she fizzles, the social conservatives will run to him in droves. I'm torn between the two, as are many. Huckabee is so likeable, that in a battle of personalities he could take down Obama. He is genuine, doesn't get angry, and even those who disagree with him find it hard to hate him. Did i mention he can speak without a teleprompter?

Mark Sanford: Give me a break. I thought he was a dud, and did not want him to be
tapped for VP last time let alone president.He's toast. His wife, on the other hand, is probably the only conservative woman who could give Sarah a run for it! women love her for not standing alongside her cheating husband like HRC standing with Bill, Elliot Spitzer's wife, and John Ensign's wife
among others.

Sarah Palin has made a bold and risky move, one that will go down as one of the smartest in political history, or something for the textbooks under the heading "How Not To Run for President." Time will tell. She's going to get it from both establishment Republicans and Democrats, however she has defeated the GOP establishment in her own state before, and regenerated and cleaned up a tired corrupt party up there, and if that is any indication, she may be just what the doctor ordered to fix things up in the lower 48.