I went on Pajamas Media, and there were over 200 nasty responses to Jazz's breath of fresh air– proving that Conservatives cannot deal with any dissent within their ranks. Palin may be a skilled politician but she is not an informed and deliberate leader. Maybe Hannity will kick Colmes off and share the limelight. Their ratings would rocket through the roof, and the diva would get her day.

The attacks on Palin (growing mainly the better she was doing) were of course scummy, and the McCain people (those “unnamed” sources) are just looking for excuses to blame their own campaign's failure. (I believe it was Ed Rollins on CNN last night, which I saw for a while where I was situated last night, who referred to “the people who have now failed three elections.”) The main thing is that Palin appealed to more than the socially-conservative, religious-right-featuring GOP “base”, but the most interest dwindled to this “base” over several weeks. As I wrote some time ago, she appealed to decent, normal people the way Huckabee did, but many of us (after having to defend both people against scumbag attacks from the predictable sewage sources) put both candidates in the proper “context” and we evaluated them as lacking. In Huckabee's case, he didn't get the nomination. In _both_ cases, the Religious Right, the object of hype and paranoia as well as viciousness and vulgarity from the Left, is far less a force than is commonly claimed.

It's even more premature to expect her to run for the Presidency in 2012 than it is for the silly set to already assume Obama will run and will be re-elected in 2012.

Sarahcuda has had a taste of the 'big screen” and like the terminator, “She'll be back.” Not sure that is a good thing though. She clearly falls into the social con / neocon mold, and seems quite happy with the role of demagog. And, I am not sure how that small tent sort of appeal is going to play out positively for republicans.

Still, time will tell, whatever her foibles are now, 4 – 8 years from now the rough edges will be worn off and she will have had time to position herself. One thing I tend to disagree with is that she is dumb. No, she is ignorant (fixable) and intellectually incurious (not so easy to fix). The later will appeal mightly to portions of the base, but will not stand her in good steed on the whole. As far as corruption goes, she has skated consequences so far, but in the long haul if she can't manage her greed / power lust better she will suffer for it results wise.