Expect 2012 to be the same.
I don't think you are getting it, Palin DOES NOT play by the "Party Elite's" play book. You can throw all your analysis out the window. She and her campaign WILL NOT be worried about the "other guy"; they will be focused on getting their message out past the media and directly to the citizen. Its the entire field that will be bending their campaigns to fight Palin's strategy and they will surely lose as that is uncharted territory for many, many pol's.
Couple that with the Palin family being "out there" in the public eye and mercilessly attacked. There is hardly anything left for the media to attack with other than trite "she's stupid; just look at her" type commentary from the "i'm relevant!!" types at the alphabet soup networks.
Nah, her campaign began a long time ago; now it is her choosing when to enter and at her will. The others will be playing catch up within two weeks of her announcement and when they do try to fire one across her bow; I see a premeditated nuke coming back at them.
The MSM and the Dem opposition research teams have been after ALL of the Palins for years and have nothing to show for it.
OTOH, who knows what is lurking in the collective closets of all the the announced and still to be GOP candidates, that will be flung at them? Neither do we know how any of them are going to react to such a heaping on, should 1) Palin not enter the race 2)not win the primaries.
Truth be told, I have never lived throw such apolitical abomination of mud slinging as has been the Palin saga ( and I do know what the Dems tried to do, sub rosa, to Mamie Eisenhower, what they did to Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes ), in my life and she and her family are still standing. I really doubt that the others could take such an onslaught.
And you're right.........she's been running for a long time;just in her own way!