Is Sarah Palin Leaving The GOP?
On Fox News last night, Mike Huckabee suggested Sarah Palin — his potential rival for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination — could leave the party that’s both welcomed and spurned her in the past year.
From the interview with Huckabee’s fellow FNCer Greta Van Susteren:
I’m a little concerned when I hear her say that she may sort of branch out and go third party or go independent. That would be a big mistake because we need to rebuild the Republican Party, not abandon it.
Wow, right? Rumors of a Palin third party bid have swirled among the conservative media this week, but Huckabee is the first of the potential WH 2012ers to address them.
As we’ve seen in the past, a third party bid would likely be suicidal for Palin (go ask Ross Perot what he’s up to these days). But it’s not likely Palin would win the GOP nomination anyway, so running outside the two major parties would give her the chance to influence things on the GOP side more than she would as just a regular GOP candidate.
Think about it: most legitimate third partiers (hold your letters, Nader fans) run from the center, which can make the candidates from either party a little nervous. But Palin would likely only peel base away from a GOP nominee, forcing him or her to either pull to the right — as Palin would probably hope — or abandon the social conservatives and run as some kind of Republican-Libertarian hybrid. (Wasn’t there there was an X-Files episode about one of those once?)
Palin is clearly aiming for the national stage post resignation from her current gig in Alaska. She wants to be a player in ‘10 and ‘12, and a third party run could actually be a way to do it. So it’s no wonder guys like Huckabee — who really do have a shot at the GOP nomination — are hoping she stays in the party fold.
A full account of Huckabee’s interview yesterday (from GOP12.com):
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I doubt she has the organizational skill or the chops to explain a new party to America. If there is some reality behind this someone is pulling the strings…Rush maybe?
That’s interesting. To be a serious third party candidate, she’d have to raise gobs and gobs of money. On the one hand, she’s not connected to the highest ranks of wealth, as Perot was, and as a potential Mike Bloomberg candidacy would have been. On the other hand, she may be capable of raising a ton online from her grassroots supporters. Yet that would require her to engage with the Internet–to show a commitment to it as an organizing tool–in a way that she just hasn’t done so far. If a MySarah website is unveiled in the next twelve months, then I’ll believe this is a real possibility.
I agree it’s still completely speculative (but then again no one really has a handle on what Palin’s up to, right?).
There are pluses for her in at least pursuing a third party path, though. Her core base will likely go wherever she takes them, and the rest of the GOP knows it. On the other hand, the Romneys, Pawlentys and Huckabees of the world remember the moderates backing away from Palin in droves near the end of 2008 and are probably pretty confident about beating her in a primary. Taking her ball and going home (or at least to another part of the playground) could be the only way Palin can get leverage with the GOP.
In response to another comment. See in context »