I’m not saying no one who lost on a ticket should ever come back, necessarily.
They should just no be so foolish as to challenge the very person they lost against again.
Dewey, Stevenson, and Mondale all learned why the hard way.
All of them challenged a president who was elected on the ticket that had defeated them 4 years earlier, and all of them lost by an even larger margin the second time around.
When FDR and Nixon ran for president after losing on a presidential ticket before, both had waited at least 8 years, and for a totally different set of challengers to run against.
Sarah running in 2012 would be the same as Mondale running against Reagan 4 years after losing to him. The only difference is Mondale actually had a record of winning a national election before.
“When FDR and Nixon ran for president after losing on a presidential ticket before, both had waited at least 8 years, and for a totally different set of challengers to run against.
Sarah running in 2012 would be the same as Mondale running against Reagan 4 years after losing to him. The only difference is Mondale actually had a record of winning a national election before.”
You forget that the economy is very slow to recover, unemployment is still rising, and that it might be still crummy by late 2011. If that happens, that changes things a bit from when Mondale or Stevenson ran. At that time the economy will be Obama’s and whoever comes out of the Republican primary will have a strong chance to unseat him. Remember when George Bush Sr. looked so strong that no prominent Democrat wanted to face him, but then the economy tanked and out of a collection of unknowns (Tsongas, Simon, Brown, Clinton) the obscure and little-known governor from Arkansas came out winning? We are virtually in unchartered territory with THIS economy, which makes the Bush economy and mild recession from 1991 look like a cake walk, so there is no way you can predict with certainty that the Republican candidate, be it Palin or whoever else comes out of the primary as the winner, has little chance to beat Obama.
Now, today may have hurt her for the Republican primary, as surely Huckabee, Romney, Jindal, Barbour or whoever runs would try to stick the “quitter” label on her, but for the general we simply don’t know yet where the economy will stand by 2012, which is really the main decider of the election, regardless who the Republican primary voters finally decide on.