WILL SARAH DO IT? – AT 10:03 A.M. ET:  Sarah Palin said this week that she's considering a run for the presidency.  Will she do it?  We have no way of knowing?  The first response, even from so-called "values" pros, was negative.  She scares a lot of people...in part because she won't kowtow to them. 

If she does run, she may have to carve out her own style.  The GOP establishment, which swears in secret ceremonies always to nominate the next person in line, will not be supporting her.  The Politico, in a somewhat sneering article, outlines the Palin dilemma:

DES MOINES — Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin came to the cradle of America’s Republican establishment to deliver a tribute to “renegades going rogue.”

Palin made clear she is considering running for president but showed no sign that she plans to engage in the painstaking, humbling contest that will begin here in Iowa later this year...

...“I don't know how the machine works. I don't really know who they are up in that hierarchy in the GOP machine,” Palin told the Des Moines audience during her call for party unity and a “great awakening of America.”

But Palin was speaking to the machine. The traditional route to the presidency runs through the Iowa caucuses and victory in the caucuses begin with kowtowing to state Republican leaders in Des Moines, and then devolves to kowtowing to county leaders, town leaders, and precinct captains. The crowd was full of men and women with warm memories of a long line of Republican candidates who have made the journey here.

And that's the problem, and also the obstacle for Sarah, who's improved dramatically as a speaker.  For too long the little hacks in Iowa have had outsized power in the primary system.  Sarah Palin is not a typical candidate.  The GOP dinner she addressed in Iowa this week was the largest of its kind ever held because of her presence.  Behind the hacks sitting up front were the real people sitting in the rear, and they outnumbered the hacks.

Palin must overcome a great deal, and it's possible she can't.  Her own faltering behavior during the 2008 campaign, and a press that despises her and her culture, have combined to give her a net negative in approval ratings.  At Urgent Agenda we've been somewhat skeptical of her.

But, somehow, I hope she runs, just to demonstrate a gutsiness that's been lacking in American politics.  And look, you never know.  Ronald Reagan was also laughed at.  And so, by the way, was FDR, who was called "featherduster" because of his supposed intellectual shallowness. 

We're a nation that cheers the underdog.  If done properly, a Palin run could be an education in itself.

September 19, 2010