She may not be able to overcome it.
That being said, if she decides to run, I think she does have the time and is capable of putting it behind her.
If nothing else, this is going to be an interesting couple of years for political junkies like ourselves, and whichever way she chooses to go it will be fun to watch and be a part of.
There’s one thing about all of this that people seem to forget, which is that the last Republican president, Bush, had all kinds of negatives that the media played on, but ultimately, the voters’ minds are made up predominantly from what they see themselves. His presence, his appearances, created a persona—all the talk about his past ultimately didn’t add up to much.
I don’t even have to say anything about Obama in this sense.
Assessing how this will work for Palin is difficult, though, because she won’t be introduced to the media when she announces her run. She’s been on the tube ever since McCain chose her—THAT will be seen as her introduction to the public. The disadvantage is that her resignation and all the rest were witnessed by the public as they happened, so they aren’t just things referenced from her past.
The flip side of this? She will have been “present” in the public sphere for four years by the time of election day 2012, which is plenty of time for people to be “over her,” and then reconsider her during the campaign. All of this stuff so recent to us may seem like long ago, far away, and dead issues to the 2012 voter.