John Nichols: Palin gets going on next campaign

John Nichols  —  11/04/2008 5:30 am

DUBUQUE -- Sarah Palin launched her campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential campaign with an afternoon rally Monday at this city's Grand River Center, a traditional meet-and-greet spot for contenders in Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.

With caucus night barely three years away, it's not too early to get started. And Palin -- whose ambition is such that she claimed she "did not blink" when asked to join a national ticket after serving a mere 20 months as the governor of the relatively remote state of Alaska -- offered every indication that she is ready to run.

Officially, of course, Palin's Dubuque stop was supposed to finish off the difficult 2008 campaign of the Republican ticket on which the governor has run with Arizona Sen. John McCain.

But why sweat minor details?

Palin certainly isn't.

The governor was asked during a recent ABC News interview whether she was thinking about running for president in 2012. Instead of dismissing the notion, she said, "I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that would bring this whole I'm not doing this for naught."

That sparked a wide-ranging debate about whether the GOP's vice presidential nominee was "going rogue."

A chastened Palin sent her spokesman around to tell reporters that the governor was actually trying to say that she would be campaigning in 2012 for the re-election of the McCain-Palin administration.

Unfortunately, that line did not occur to Palin when she was actually answering the question about whether she was preparing for a presidential run of her own -- a subtlety that has reportedly infuriated McCain loyalists within the Republican Party's "big tent."

The truth is that Palin and her closest aides are thinking 2012. They know she's been the star of the party's 2008 campaign, as opposed to an often listless McCain.

The crowds that Palin has been drawing on her own -- often exceeding 10,000 -- just serve to highlight the discussion about when, not if, the governor will make her move for a place at the top of the ticket. Even if polls and pundits suggested she harmed the GOP ticket's efforts to connect with those elusive "swing" voters, the governor was -- and is -- a superstar with the base.

Her trip to Iowa, a state where Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden maintained a wide poll lead over McCain and Palin going into today's election, only stoked speculation about a 2012 bid.

That may be the last thing John McCain needed.

But Palin's thinking ahead.

The remaining question: Will Palin be endorsed by McCain?

The all-but-certain answer: No.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.

John Nichols  —  11/04/2008 5:30 am