For as long as she possibly can. Palin is not playing the Presidential game. She is just "playing" her supporters like a cheap fiddle and her supporters keep "Waiting for Godot".
I can see people pledging themselves to other candidates because Palin is going about this the wrong way and it will backfire.
Don't worry about Palin. Things are going exactly as planned and things are going extremely well.
Palin's focus is not to be elected President. Unlike her fanatical supporters, she is politically savvy and knows that her support is a mile deep but an inch wide. The abysmal box office of "The Undefeated" confirmed that. Once the very limited supply of loyal supporters was tapped out after Week 1 at each theater location, the movie crashed and burned by Week 2.
Palin's current profession is that of a very well paid entertainment celebrity whose main focus is maximizing her personal income and Bristol's income in the business of Reality TV shows, book sales, paid speeches, paid appearances and paid interviews.
Due to the "Equal Time" provision of Section 315 of the Communication Act, TV networks cancel the contracts of employees that are serious Presidential candidates. Yet, Palin and FOX News continue a very cozy relationship that is very lucrative for both of them:
1.) Sarah Palin spends a week here and a week there pretending to run for President. Such a fake campaign does not trigger Section 315.
2.) FOZ News hypes each of her fake campaigns.
3.) At the end of each fake campaign, Palin's loyal supporters and the curious Palin non-supporters then drive the FOX ratings as Palin appears in an "exclusive FOX interview of Sarah Palin" where one FOX employee (Palin) is being paid to be interviewed by another FOX employee that is paid to toss Palin cream puff questions.
4.) Palin cashes her paychecks and FOX News gets their ratings bonanza.
5.) Rinse and repeat for as long as the game keeps generating money for Fox and Palin.
Since Palin "has done none of the groundwork" that other candidates have done for a serious Presidential run (lining up paid staff, lining up paid campaign managers, lining up serious donors, etc.) this repeated charade can only last so long. At that point, Palin will find some noble-sounding excuse not to run, will endorse the strongest candidate in the field whose name is not "Romney" and will then keep trying to milk her celebrity status as long as she possibly can as a "Kingmaker".
Hey, Karl... is that you?
Since you seem to be able to foretell the future what will be the Stock Market close a year from today troll?