Give it a rest.
You’re like a dog with a bone.
Kinda like the vultures in the threads on Marc Sanford the other week, right?
She recently spent time in Europe around members of the U.S. military, and I have to wonder if perhaps she reflected on the possibility that events will destabilize in conventional politics, with more and more of a rationale for a new third party. That thought process would have already started, of course.
She would perhaps be thinking of spending a year or two cultivating that possibility under the cover of being a more general campaigner for fiscal restraint and accountability, and then could be thinking of moving forward to a third party convention with other political mavericks around perhaps early 2011.
Just a thought, reading between the lines. If she really wants to work on a new course of action in American politics, she needs to be free from her duties in Alaska, because there isn't much more support she could gain there, and the constant trips down to the lower 48 would compromise her financially as well as in her Alaskan duties.
Predictions are off the table at this stage because, frankly, nobody can foresee the eventual course of the Obama presidency. He could crash and burn in public opinion very soon, or he could manage to build a stronger base and be locked into 2012, but also there are more disturbing possibilities.
You also have to consider that she knows of some further news story to come, that would place family members back in the spotlight, and perhaps they have all had enough of it for a while.
Because things are so unpredictable, Palin’s future is a function of the uncertainties in the current political situation to some extent. Will Obama be forced to the sidelines before 2011? Will the American economy survive the current difficulties or will there be a deeper social crisis to follow? Is there about to be a constitutional crisis based on perceptions in the “red states” that the federal balance of power has shifted too much to Washington?
Whatever happens, I doubt that Palin’s political career is over. I think it may only just be beginning, in fact.