[MrEdd]

Sarah Palin has effectively just taken herself out of the running.

not in any way, shape or form.

Like Ross Perot in 1990, she has enough pull to run with or without the republican party. Their choice I suppose. Unlike Perot, she is a conservative ideologue. She wont be jumping in and out of the race as a spoiler.

If the Republicans want to try with one of the liberal Troika again in the face of her candidacy, fine. But the votes she siphons off are not votes they were somehow entitled too, and the whining they will do is going to be reflected strait back at them just as is being done now for pushing McStain, Romney, and Rooty.

Look at her history against heavy opposition (much of it from within the Republican party) in Alaska. This is a candidate that thrives on establishment opposition. She has chosen to give up state office to concentrate on the presidency now.

Good luck with trying to make her go away with words.

[nathanbedford]

It is my view that Sarah Palin has concluded that her family must come first and she intends to withdraw from active politics in the sense of seeking higher office. I regret that. I think it is a grave loss to the whole country. I wish she had taken my advice gratuitously given well before the election that she spend this last, long, dark Alaska winter undergoing forensic training. If she were to run and could somehow miraculously overcome the strategic blunder, I would support her.

Please do not confuse an honest appraisal of the facts with some sort of endorsement of those facts.

I offer the following three posts, the last of which done I think before the election, so that you will understand my position:

I fully agree with Mark Steyn's take, in fact, it parallels my post which came out with the news:

It is the explanation that makes the most sense, her family has been so battered by this process, by the unmitigated venom of the Democrat attacks against her, that they are simply withdrawing into their Alaskan reality. They never lived by the Beltway reality. They are just going home.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2285287/posts?page=6#6

Your points are well considered but could it be that we have just witnessed Sarah Palin jump the shark moment? Please understand, I do not wish it so, quite the contrary, I dearly wish it were otherwise. I merely calls 'em as I sees 'em.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2285086/posts?page=97#97

Finally, so that you understand how I feel about Sarah Palin, I add this lengthy reply:

You know I have spent considerable time in Alaska and much of it in Wasilla. I can well understand how somebody with Sarah Palin's personality and energy could rise to become governor of that state by virtue of her merit. In Alaska, at least in the Wasilla area, everybody knows everybody else and you better be a standup guy. You can be as eccentric as an out- house rat, but you better be a straight shooter and you better not put on no airs.

These down-home virtues are what is needed but not what is prized in Washington. I believe Sarah Palin is up against two psychological forces which she must overcome.

The first is a phenomenon applied to all Republican candidates that I can remember since Eisenhower. I can remember being told quite earnestly that the man who commanded the biggest, most complicated, and most successful amphibious operation in history was really quite stupid. Every succeeding Republican president since Eisenhower (excepting Nixon who was evil) was stupid. This calumny is tried on against every Republican candidate who comes along. We saw what happened to Dan Quayle. Can you recall how stupid Ronald Reagan was? Bedtime for Bozo? George Bush Sr. was out of touch and stupid, although his wife was conceded to be house smart in a grandmotherly sort of way. We all know her son is a moron. Sarah Palin, like Dan Quayle, was left out there exposed, unprepared and unsupported and no one should be surprised that the result was the same. So when Palin drops her gs and says "aw shucks," that is all the Eastern establishment needed to hear to match up the person with the holes in the template.

Of course, President Kennedy was in near genius who sped read at an amazing clip. We found out later that this was a lie and that his Pulitzer prize-winning book was ghostwritten. We now know that he must have been in a thick drug-induced cloud for much of his tenure in the Oval Office. Do you remember being told how intuitive Bill Clinton was and how he could summarize an expert's presentation better than the expert? Al Gore was a genius who was too good for the schools he flunked out of. And Barak Obama, well one can only express astonishment that his coming was not announced by John the Baptist.

And this messianic allusion brings me to the main problem which Sarah Palin confronts in structuring her image. It is the Billy Budd effect. If you recall your Melville, you will know that Billy Budd was a figure of good whose very presence antagonized the first mate who persecuted Billy Budd unmercifully. The mate was driven to do this unconsciously because the mate was a figure of evil. The mate had his demons. So it is with the left in America today, they are driven to a visceral hatred of Sarah Palin because she is the 21st century figure of Billy Budd. Sarah Palin committed an unforgivable affront, she knowingly carried a Mongoloid to term. This cannot be forgiven. This is the ultimate reproach to the entire belief system of the left. Sarah Palin need not even open her mouth and she is hated with a cold and unremitting fury.

This is why I said that the left hates Sarah Palin not for what she says or how she appears on television but for who she is. The left must react as evil always reacts in the presence of good. Like the second mate, they must persecute Sarah Palin and they do not even know why.

But Sarah Palin ought to know why if she is going to be able to cope with a brick bats that will come her way. She must know that she can never charm these people. The more she tries the more they will hate her. She must focus on her target, the conservative base which she will keep so long as she is faithful and the independent middle which is persuadable if she can appear to be a normal and a wholesome person.