Where are the optimist today? I don't look at it the way you do. Go back to last year at this time when it looked like the field was going to be the same names as 2008 minus Fred Thompson and McCain.
Huntsman, Huckabee, Romney, Rudy, Paul were the names popping up. It looked pretty dismal. Nothing but RINOs and those unelectable. Move forward one year and we could have a debate stage field with people like: Cain, Palin, Bachmann, and Perry, and maybe one or two more good names added soon. That would be a dream come true if you were to ask us a year ago. There is plenty of room for Palin.
True, a lot can happen between now and election day.
I remember McCain being counted out many times, before he was the nominee.