“Republicans tend to pick the next guy in line. Strangely enough, the next guy in line is now Sarah Palin, by virtue of her being the VP nominee this year. She will have the benefit of being both an outsider candidate and the natural heir to the nomination; indeed, the only candidate who will have experience in a general election campaign…

Palin will be the most well-financed candidate aside from Mitt Romney. She will raise gobs of money from old energy interests (who will be running scared against Obama’s green energy initiatives), and will in turn raise gobs of money from small donors online…

GOP voters simply don’t nominate new candidates who came from nowhere. Therefore, no matter what events transpire, we can safely predict that the GOP will nominate someone who is already known to us today.”

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“Given the way she’s presented herself on the campaign trail and/or been used by the McCain campaign, and given the media narrative surrounding her candidacy at the moment, for Palin to be elected President of the United States would require an image makeover even more substantial than the one Hillary Clinton underwent between the late 1990s and this year… Such a makeover is by no means impossible – this is America! nothing’s impossible! – but running as the candidate of Rush and James Dobson in 2012 isn’t going to get her there.”

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“Sarah’s the one… The party is broken and only she can fix it. We need someone who comes from outside Washington and relates to the aspirations of ordinary Americans.”