She may think the “old rules” no longer matter, but one “old rule” absolutely will be in play: you can figure that Palin will have pollsters at every stop focusing heavily on her negatives, and at the end of the tour, if her negatives are still over 40% with the Independents, you can bet she won’t run.
I agree. She’s *not* stupid despite what the left says, but I do fear she is unelectable. This is key - if her negatives don’t improve beyond what you say, I agree - she’ll do what’s best for her country, and decide not to run, but endorse someone (Cain or *maybe* Bachmann) who she feels has a shot and represents her values.
With regard to Palin’s electability, I’ve used the Christine O’Donnell example...so many people here insisted that she’d either win outright or only lose by a few points despite polls showing a near 20 pts loss...and sure enough, the polls were right, she lost by 17 pts.
We have to try to “think like an independent” when we look at whether or not a candidate can win.