General

Run, Sarah, run

Why Sarah Palin has better-than-average chances of winning the GOP nomination in 2012

Will Sarah Palin make a run at the presidency in 2012? It’s looking likely, say analysts, even though the most recent CNN/Opinion Research poll shows 71 per cent of Americans think the Republican diva is “not qualified to be president.” Politics Daily columnist Walter Shapiro argues the Republican party’s “to-the-victor-go-the-spoils method of picking convention delegates” might work to Palin’s advantage. The party, Shapiro claims, prefers to avoid lengthy selections by picking candidates who win over party convention delegates early on. (The Democratic Party, on the other hand, uses a proportional representation system that requires delegates to wait until all the primaries are over before voting.) But though she may be popular with some party members, Shapiro warns Palin could end up do the GOP more harm than good. “The Divine Sarah,” he writes, with her “megawatt incandescence and her Facebook leadership,” might prove to the be “the 21st century version of Barry Goldwater,” whose mere nomination by Republicans in 1964 “[led] the Republican Party into the abyss.”

Politics Daily

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