Will Palin run as an independent?
An interesting article in Business Insider on whether Palin may leave the Republicans and run as an Independent:
Palin has stated that she will (finally!) announce whether or not she’s going to jump into the Republican primary race by the end of this month.
Expectations were high that she might just announce her intentions a week ago, at an appearance at a Tea Party event in Iowa. Once again, Palin declined to do so.
Palin’s got three options, in essence. Number one, throw her hat in the ring and vie for the Republican presidential nomination against the field.
Number two, announce it’s been a big tease all along, and she won’t be running — and, likely, that she’s going to hold off endorsing any candidate “for now,” in a naked effort to keep her teasing of the media going strong for months to come.
But there is a third option she might opt for, which seems (upon examination) to have a lot of potential upsides for Palin, and relatively few downsides: running as a third-party candidate.
But, putting all that aside, let’s examine the situation from Palin’s point of view. Assume, for the sake of argument, that Palin is intent on running for president (if you don’t make this assumption, then the rest of the argument — and the rest of this column — becomes irrelevant). She’s got two paths to take to win the White House — run as a Republican, or run as some sort of Independent.
If she runs as a Republican, she must win not one but two elections — the primaries and the general. This means not only taking on Romney, Perry, and all the rest, but it also means participating in the Republican nomination contest. She’d be expected to debate, in other words.
She’d be required to stand on a stage with a pack of other Republicans, and compete on the level of answering questions from moderators. Running as an Independent would avoid all of that. The only debate stage she’d expect to appear on would be one with Barack Obama and a single Republican, next fall. Running as an Independent would mean her name would move straight to the general election battle — with no chance her candidacy would be derailed early next year.
Running as an Independent would seem — to most political commentators and Washington establishmentarians — as a huge mistake for Palin. This is yet another upside, seen from the point of view of Palin herself. She can’t standthe pundits and the insiders, remember. She isn’t afraid of bluntly letting them know this, either. Confounding these two inside-the-Beltway groups would be a source of continuing delight for Palin. She would revel in the opportunity to play the cat among the pigeons, once again. Defyin’ the lamestream media, and defyin’ the Washington bigwigs would be lotsa fun, oh, you betcha!