Waiting In The Wings

by Patrick Appel

DiA makes an important comparison:

In five months, Sarah Palin's political action committee SarahPAC raised $733,000. That's not bad for a governor whose political base in Alaska is not that large, and whose last five months have largely been spent fighting bad headlines and family turmoils. But another relevant number for Mrs Palin might be $1.4m. That's how much Mitt Romney, the erstwhile presidential candidate from Massachusetts, raised in an identical period from January to May.

Romney's plastic focus-group conservatism has always bothered me. Watching him last fall, it seemed like he would flip on any given issue in the pursuit of power. His swipes at fellow Republicans during the primaries didn't land more often than not and made him appear petty. But, compared to Sarah Palin, Romney begins to look more attractive. Perhaps his cringe-inducing pandering to voters would make him more accountable to the public than characters like Cheney ever were. If Palin and Huckabee run they will split the evangelical base and Romney could squeak by. I'd prefer Pawlenty or Crist take a run at the nomination, but I'm not sure either of them want it. Depending on the economic climate, Romney's business acumen could prove a much greater boon the second time around.

Who else is there?