Keeping the brand healthy

Keeping the brand healthy

by digby

Palin running? I’d be surprised, at least if “running” has the same meaning it has in the past. I wouldn’t be surprised if Palin proposes changing the rules to having people text in their votes like they did for Bristol when she was on Dancing With The Stars.

Will Bunch has it right IMO:

[D]oes this mean that Sarah Palin — who also just moved to Arizona, which is always a good move for White House hopefuls, as Presidents Goldwater and McCain showed us — is officially running for POTUS 45? Signs point to yes, although only in the bizarre way that Sarah Palin is re-inventing politics for our warped 21st Century. I think what happened is this: The Palin brand was on fire in 2010, but then it crashed and burned, in part because of overexposure and partly after the Tucson shootings. To save that personal brand — which made her a millionaire in a very short time — she needed three things to happen. 1) She needed to drop out of sight for six months and stay out of trouble. 2) She needed to hope (and this was outside her control, obviously) that the 2012 GOP field would be uninspiring and that no one united the Tea Party wing of the party, and having seen 1) and 2) now happen, it’s time for 3) She needed to make herself a political A-lister again, and the truth is she can only do that by running for president. She probably knows there’s no way she can win, but she’s also smart enough to realize that doesn’t matter, that the $100,000 speaking gigs to truck-stop operators and the big book advances would grind to a halt of she didn’t stay in the game.

.