Sarah Palin thinks she might just have won in '08

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Take a seat. And a deep breath. And try to keep your sides from splitting as you read this:

Republicans would have been more successful in the 2008 presidential elections if she was at the top of the ticket, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin suggested Saturday.

Speaking at the India Today Conclave in New Delhi, Palin was asked why the GOP ticket did not defeat then-Sen. Barack Obama (D). Palin said that Obama ran a strong campaign and effectively billed himself as a change candidate.

Pressed by India Today editor Aroon Purie that she also represented change, Palin replied, "I wasn't at the top of the ticket, remember?"

The 2008 vice presidential nominee said she was not claiming she should have been the nominee over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), but her comments provide a glimpse of her potential appeal to voters should she choose to run for the nomination in 2012.

Okay.

First, why was Palin invited to speak in India? What could she possibly have to say? I suppose her "star" is her appeal, but I doubt she's ever given the slightest thought to anything Indian, with the possible exception of outsourcing and, perhaps less possibly, food.

Second, she may not have been said she should have been at the top of the ticket, but you don't have to read too deeply between the lines -- her message is clear. She thinks the McCain campaign disrespected her and that it failed in large part because it kept her on the sidelines. She is nothing if not a massive egotist, after all, a self-aggrandizing, self-glorifying fool. And just imagine what it would have been like had she been at the top. She wouldn't have been able to hide from the media after those embarrassing interviews with Katie Couric et al., and she would only have embarrassed herself further. At least McCain had some legitimate bona fides as something of a maverick (however faux) and had some credibility on foreign policy. Palin had nothing, and it was only a matter of time, a short amount of time, until that initial burst of popularity blew up.

Third, the "change" Americans wanted in '08 wasn't the sort of change Palin was offering, which really wasn't change at all but more of the Bush-Cheney same with a bit more social conservatism thrown in and much less of an appreciation for reality (not that Bush and Cheney appreciated reality all that much, but at least they had a sense of the world -- yes, even Bush).

Fourth... oh, enough Palin for now.

Once again, all we're getting is the same old maybe-maybe-not bullshit about running for president. But her popularity has plummeted. He still has her ardent admirers on the right, in the deepest recesses of the GOP base, but pretty much everyone else, including not just independents but once-mainstream Republicans and establishment conservatives, wants her to go away.

She won't, of course, but her days as a legitimate contender, if she ever was one, are well behind her.