In 1979, in the PRE-Internet Era and PRE-Cable & PRE-Satellite TV Era, all the information you got was from CBS, NBC, ABC and the newspaper or magazine you subscribed too: Thirty minutes in the evening and as long as it took you to read a few newspaper articles each morning.
Different Era. Different World. Different pace.
In the PRE-Internet Era and PRE-Cable & PRE-Satellite TV Era, the horse race would not start until January of 1980.
In today's Internet Era and Cable & Satellite TV Era, the horse race started long ago.
In November, 1979, Ronald Reagan had a large, professional, well-oiled political and financial machine ready to roll.
In August, 2011, Sarah Palin has taken no steps to even begin to create such a political machine and the major donors and the professional campaign managers, consultants and staff have already been taken by other candidates. Rick Perry announced last month but his preparation of his campaign infrastructure began months before.
In the slow moving PRE-Internet Era and PRE-Cable & PRE-Satellite TV Era, you could wait until the middle of November to declare without problems.
In the fast paced Internet Era and Cable & Satellite TV Era, waiting until the middle of November guarantees defeat because the filing deadline for the Florida primary is October 31 and the filing deadline for the South Carolina primary is the following day.
Different Era. Different World. Different pace.
The attention span of the average person in the Internet age is way shorter than it was in the time of Reagan.
The average thought, argument, logical stance, belief, etc., is more ill-conceived and less thought-out now as opposed to then. People are unmistakeably stupider and more intellectually lazy.
The reporting is more bogus, specious, simple-minded, and slogan- and meme-driven than it was thirty years ago.
Sarah by waiting is compensating for all this.
By the time she announces, all the other guys will be way stale.
She knows what she is doing, and she is playing the media, not the other way around. That should tell you something about her as a strategist.