This is a very difficult topic to discuss.  Sarah Palin evokes all kinds of reactions from all sides of the political spectrum. Most of which (in my mind) not of the calm reasoned well-thought out variety–either in favor or opposed.

Furthermore it’s challenging to discuss the question of her future political career (or lack thereof)  post-resignation because we frankly still don’t know why exactly she resigned and/or what she is aiming to do as she leaves the Governor’s office.  There are many hypotheses as to why she resigned, but no one really knows for sure. At this point it’s all very much speculation.

In addition, there is no way anyone can know either way how this will all turn out.  The future is not already written on this one.  It’s open to all kinds of choices yet to be made as well potential outside events that could affect how this develops.  What I do know is that however it plays out for Sarah Palin, pundits will deploy 20/20 hindsight ‘it was all inevitable’ reason to argue that her downfall (or potential comeback) was set in stone.  That this decision was either the biggest bonehead move ever or the cagiest most genius political maneuver ever.

With that said, allow me to speculate. 

The only thing it seems to me we do know with certainty is what Palin has said concerning her intentions.  Namely that she desires to speak to the issues that matter to her: limited government, strong defense/security, and energy independence.  She would like I think to be a central figure in the upcoming 2010 midterm elections, campaigning on behalf of GOP candidates, using that as forum to test the waters for a possible 2012 run and establish herself as the de facto leading voice/head of the GOP.

And this is where I think the execution of her decision–if not the decision itself–has been really destructive to any future plans she has.  Word is out that a number of GOP candidates in swing districts would like her to stay home–or at least campaign for somebody else.  We know Sarah Palin is very popular with the right-wing base of the Republican Party.  But she has burned bridges (to nowhere?) with a large swath of centrists and independents.

The longer she is in the news picking fights with David Letterman, having the father of her grandchild speak to the media, seen to have forced her daughter into reversing her position on abstinence teaching, the more tabloid/reality TV-like the family drama continues to be, the more this really hurts her across the board except in the minds of those who are already on her side. For them, this is just proof of liberal media bias and a campaign to discredit Sarah Palin because she represents the true voice of ‘real’ America.

She doesn’t need to convince that latter group however.  She needs the former to be more open to her, and this kind of stuff is corrosive to her political image in the minds of those she most needs to persuade.

If Republicans in swing districts fear her polarizing tendencies, where does she go from here?  She wants to run (I think) an insurgent campaign for the 2012 GOP nomination.  She has no choice really.  The GOP party establishment has largely abandoned her and would like to see her go away (preferably quietly).  I think she is trying to re-run her somewhat improbable victory in the Alaska Governor’s Race. She starts with a fairly small, ultra-loyal, right-wing base and then uses that as a launchpad to run as a more moderate/centrist reformer/good governance figure in the general election.

However in that case, she was a political newcomer to much of the State.  She is now extremely well known–or more importantly people think they know her and have formed strong images/perceptions of her.  She evokes strong reactions on both sides which explains both her high favorability ratings within the party and her high unfavorability ratings outside the GOP base.

Three years is a near eternity in our contemporary 24/7 cable news political cycle.  Nevertheless, strong gut opinions formed on a candidate tend to stick.  And her rambling quasi-incoherent slapdash speech at her press conference announcing her resignation, her followup bizarre less than grammatically precise Tweets, etc. all play into the negative image of her as unprepared and un-reflective.  Contrary to some consenus views, I don’t think the charge of being a quitter is the one Palin really has to worry about, but rather the charge that she can’t hack it when  the pressure is on.   To that end, Mike Huckabee, her prime rival for the social conservative vote, came out and said she might not be able to handle the pressure–implying without saying that she is unbalanced.  That’s a brutal label she does not want sticking to her.  Especially if she were to ever run against the ultra-calm, ultra-cool Obama.

Still even with her big following in the GOP base, the GOP nomination process will work against her.  It will work against an insurgent candidacy.  Obama’s insurgent campaign, was both brilliantly conceived and the beneficiary of A)Hillary Clinton’s poor campaign strategy and B)The Democratic nominating process.  [Remember the GOP nomination process is winner take all (not proportional delegates as Democrats do].  I have to think that most of the GOP candidates we imagine running in 2012 (e.g. Huckabee, Romney) ran last time and will have learned those lessons.  If she can not get some early wins she will sink like lead.

Lastly and perhaps most distressingly for her chances, the demographic population of her base is shrinking.  Obama won in 2008 by offering an alternative vision for 21st century–it was on display at the Democratic Convention in Denver.  It was multi-racial, multi-ethnic, it was young, old, crossed class lines.  How will Sarah Palin expand beyond her base on the national level? What does Sarah represent as a future vision?  A throwback to a nostalgic imagined past of small town ‘real’  America?

At their absolute worst her campaigns during the 2008 election evoked extremely nasty protestations against “them”, “the others”.  If she were to run for President, those would only be even more magnified by the national media.

Not only does Sarah Palin add fuel to the fire of the culture wars (with her stances on abortion and so forth) but also stokes a potential racial/ethnic divide.  The US writ-large is not Alaska.  The country is trending Democratic and to overcome that built-in advantage, she (any Republican actually) will have to overcome.  Her Nixonian crusade against the elites may not have the pull it once did.  We’ll see–maybe there’s a silent majority out there for her.   I’m quite skeptical.

She will have to thread the needle of stoking her base without stoking fires.  This is the media age. All politics occurs through the medium of medias.  Any such outbursts, whether fairly or unfairly will really hurt her chances.  Such negative videos, confirming negative stereotypes, would only further and further alienate and turn other voters outside her base against her.

I could see her with some luck potentially making a serious run (maybe even winning) the GOP nomination.  But I don’t see any way she can win out in a larger setting.  If the 2012 election is going to be a referendum on President Obama’s first term–as re-election campaigns usually are–and let’s imagine things are going very badly for the country and for him politically at that point, a Sarah Palin nomination takes the focus off turning down Obama for re-election and puts it squarely back on Sarah herself and perceptions about her readiness (mentally especially) for the job.

That is needless to say, a lot to ask.  And given her stormy political career so far and the unimaginable pressure of a national campaign in this age, I don’t see how it happens.  Do we imagine that all the same kinds of problems–political infighting, gut decisions made before thinking through the ramifications or how to proceed with the decision, lacking a real clear policy agenda, and a perceived lack of interest in world events–is going to do anything but be magnified by a factor of 100 in a national campaign?

She would really need to convince a large swath of very skeptical/pretty much already made up their minds voters, that she has changed…that she has boned up on world events, that she has a sense of perspective on the various different strands that make up America (and all of them rightly being considered American, hers being but one version thereof), and a whole host of other things.

It’s a tall order. A very tall order.