Pirate's Cove

That’s the headline over at CNN for an opinion piece, which raises some interest points. I’ll skip past the ones discussing the current GOP crop, get right to the meat

It didn’t have to be this way. If Sarah Palin had entered the contest, I’d hypothesize two alternative realities. One, she’d have the nomination sewn up by now. Two, she’d be running even in the polls with the president.

Despite my highly negative opinion (I had been a massive supporter) which started manifesting over the summer and was etched in stone when she missed her deadline in September saying to Greta “I can’t make a decision in 24 hours”, culminating in saying nope in early October, I think she could have been the contender, provided she had boned up on everything and actually competed in the GOP beauty pageant, er, debates. Alas, she didn’t even get her toes wet.

While it’s reasonable to speculate that Palin could have gathered a much stronger anti-Mitt coalition earlier –and broken out as the GOP front-runner sooner –it’s probably a bigger stretch to say that she would be running stronger against Obama right now.

Had she gotten in early and proved that she was more than plain spoken (a benefit) with the ability to write a Facebook post, that dynamic would have changed. She could have erased the BS media stereotype quickly.

The Republicans desperately need a candidate who can appeal to lower-income voters, who can rally men, who can gain women’s votes, who can bring out conservatives in large numbers and who can appeal to a younger demographic. All these things happened in the 2010 midterms, when the GOP made inroads into blue-collar households and middle-class suburbs on a policy platform virtually embodied by the Alaskan maverick.

She could have. But, she wasn’t willing to jump in the pool. I’ll stop right there before I go on a little rant. Suffice to say she could have made a big difference, and the Palin of old, the one who was so popular in Alaska, who easily attracted many demographics, could have, at worst, taken all the Bush 2004 states, which means a general election win.