What are the chances of Palin becoming a third party candidate, luring right wing Republican votes?

[zonkers]

I know its a way off but IMO, where else can she go? Can she really ever run again as a Republican when Dems can just replay her hate speeches as campaign ads? I, for one cannot fathom all the concern expressed on DU about Palin running 2012. Her goose is cooked. With her looks will be greatly diminished and all she will have is her intellect. I can see it. Thoughts?

[Happyhippychick]

1. "all she will have is her intellect"? So she'll have nothing?

:rofl:

[saltpoint]

2. It would be fun to see Palin break off from the GOP and run 3rd-party.

She could name Michele Bachmann as her running mate.

[lamp_shade]

3. Her only "real" supporters aren't old enough to vote yet.

[dipsydoodle]

11. No - her only real supporters

are her expensive bras.

[kentuck]

4. Someone made the comment...

that the Republicans were not angry that Governor Sarah took the clothes back to Alaska - they are angry that she took their "base" with her also...

[Warren Stupidity]

5. She'll run in the 2012 primaries.

Huckabee Jindal Romney and Palin. She will do just fine. They love her. Good news for us.

[PresidentObama]

6. She'll be the Republican nominee, mark my words n/t

[saltpoint]

7. The Rogue Moose Party, 2012.

[WinkyDink]

8. She is nothing. Why are you writing or thinking of her?

[Essene]

9. The religious-right will not jump from the party

If a new party should emerge, it will be formed around fiscal conservatives if not some variation of libertarianism (less likely).

The GOP has become too entangled with social conservative agendas and identity.

Their "base" of 25-30% of america is too obsessed with the culture wars to easily let go...

[saltpoint]

15. Agree -- that entanglement is pervasive now in their base, but

it may also be cause for their defeat.

Palin is said to have "energeized" that base, I guess owing to her affiliation with a nutbag, endtimes church.

But even the Palin additive and the energized fundie base was not enough to save the ticket. It may even have hurt the ticket.

The power elite in the Republican Party has to take some of the blame -- maybe a lot of the blame -- for choosing her. They hopped on a cruise ship to Alaska and their people and the Governor's people arranged a big dinner event (this according to the NEW YORKER), in which Palin was said to have charmed Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, and a slew of other influential insider-types.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/27/081027fa_fact_mayer


Either McCain was unaware of this campaign months before Palin was named veep nom, or he knew and didn't care, or he knew and thought he would persevere with Ridge or Lieberman anyway.

In any case, Palin's "base" overlaps Huckabee's demographic in places like Iowa, where the first caucus will be held, and where Huckabee won this past January.

Agree with you that the fundie nutbags don't want to break from the GOP, since it has been riding the Republican complicity to power and influence, but from the other side, the GOP power elite will either ave to choose more carefully or risk fundie secession.

[dbonds]

10. Very likely that wing of the republican party will win the internal war.

Which means she will be the face of the republican party. In other words, the loonies take the party from the fiscal conservatives. Which leave the fiscal conservatives looking for the third party - I bet they go libertarian.

[Essene]

13. the real fiscal conservatives are absolutely opposite of libertarians

I think the libertarians and some of the culture warriors will increasingly align during the obama presidency. There is a lot of room for intolerance, theocracy, nativism and protectionism within the libertarian camp.

The real war is between the culture warriors/libertarians vs the fiscal conservatives who are otherwise moderate if not progressive.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

12. Oh da irony,

the agonizing comedy of the Republican Party fragmenting and becoming the new, third party.

Funniest thing about it is, I think it's highly likely.

Too many somewhat reasonable Republicans are now distancing themselves from the hardcore social conservative base.

The social conservative base, perhaps the most pridefully ignorant portion of the American People, now hold the same fundamental values as the fledgling wackjob Constitution Party.

The only way that a legitimate third party ever enters the American political fray is for sitting politicians to stand up en masse and declare that they are all now of another party.

[Occam Bandage]

14. Palin/NathanCummings '12!

[ddeclue]

16. Why choose?

I say she BECOMES the Republican candidate AND the Republican party becomes the largest "third party" in America all at the same time.

Why choose?