“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.
Look, I totally agree that 0bama will have a host of problems of his own creation. I mean, if his term turns out to not be so bad, then there isn’t as much urgency to drag him out of office, right?
I believe he will screw things up more than we can imagine.
However, he did get more votes than anyone ever has, so he has a lot of support to lose before he is vulnerable. We will have an opening, but only with the right candidate with the right message who can step in as the adult in the race. That candidate will need to be armed with facts and figures at their command, and a quick and sharp intellect. They will need common sense alternatives to 0bama’s agenda that people can get behind. Shrill platitudes won’t cut it. I see this candidate as being in the mold of Newt Gingrich. Though not necessarily Newt himself. I think Mike Pence could be that person, but he would have to follow in Newt’s footsteps first, lead a New Republican Revolution in 2010, take back the House, and be made Speaker. Then he could use the Speaker’s chair as a buttress and bully pulpit against 0bama and launch a run for the White House from there. But that’s a pretty tall order, and not very likely to happen.
No matter who runs against 0bama in the end, they can’t be like the one-dimensional cartoons that have been offered up as of late.