What Palin Is Thinking

Ben Smith has a moment of clarity:

There's really no evidence at all that she has a plan.

Jay Newton-Small differs:

I would say Palin’s goal is to torture the “lame stream media,” but there may be more going through her mind. In many ways, it’s a smart ploy. The frustration and time spent looking for Palin, only to have her say next to nothing, is driving the press wild. Even if it yields few stories, Palin still controls her own message by blogging the trip herself, and forcing everyone to check her website to see what she’s saying and where she’s going.

P.M. Carpenter's understanding of recent events:

If there are any politics here, they may relate to a formal Tea Party creation down the road, certainly by 2016, perhaps by the intervening midterms. For what we're watching now is the customary kind of sharp thinking and precise planning that precede the creation of foreordained calamities of the third-party breed.

I do think there's an implied threat that if the GOP won't buy this package, she'll go retail in a third party bid. And remember Perot helped elect newbie Clinton in an electoral college margin higher than Obama's in 2008. What Palin could do to an uninspired GOPer, like Romney or Pawlenty, could up-end national politics.