http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/4051-sarah-palins-presidential-strategySarah Palin has special appeal because she wraps the story in an upbeat message. She avoids the bilious rants of Rush, Sean Hannity, and their ilk. But her cheerfulness isn't sunny; she doesn't promise Morning in America. She offers pure snark, and promises revenge. Over and over again she tells the same snide, sarcastic, inside joke, but in different words: "They think they can keep screwing us, but (wink, wink), we know something they don't. We're gonna take over and screw them."
The Palin Strategy is to circumvent the Republican establishment, filled as it is with career Republicans, business executives, and Wall Streeters. That's why her path to the Republican nomination isn't the usual insider game. It's a celebrity game - a snark-fest with the nation's entire white working class. Vote for Bristol and we'll show the media establishment how powerful we are! Buy my book and we'll show the know-it-all coastal elites a real book directed at real people! Tune into my cable show and we'll show the real America - far from the urban centers with immigrants and blacks and fancy city slickers!
As I believe will become clearer, the Palin Strategy will involve a political threat to the GOP establishment: Deny her the nomination she'll run as independent. This will split off much of the white working class and guarantee defeat of the Republican establishment candidate. It will also result in her defeat in 2012, but that's a small price to pay for gaining the credibility and power to demand the nomination in 2016, or threaten another third-party run in 2020.
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More than anything else, the Palin Strategy depends on the continuing fear and anger of America's white working class.
She's betting that their economic prospects will not improve by 2012, or even by 2016 and beyond.
Sadly, this is likely to be the case. On Tuesday, the Fed issued a gloomy prognosis. Even if the U.S. economy began to grow at a rate more typical of recoveries than the current anemic 2 percent, unemployment won't drop to its pre-recession level for 5 to 7 years. A minority of the Fed thought this was too optimistic.