by Zack Beauchamp
Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake make the case that Palin be Romney's best friend in the primary:
With Palin in the race, there would be three “big” figures — Palin, Perry and Bachmann— all competing for tea party voters. Assuming none of the three run away with the support of a large number of tea partiers — and Perry clearly has the best chance to do that — the resulting fracturing of the vote would allow Romney a path to victory.
Bernstein counters:
Palin running creates a fair number of risks for both Perry and Romney. The first is that based on her record, she certainly cannot be trusted to be a loyal party soldier. We don’t know how that might play out in the actual campaign, but if I were running the winning candidate’s campaign I wouldn’t want a candidate around who is known to hold grudges and act on them, and who has shown little respect for party norms and interests. Moreover, since Palin is massively unpopular with the general electorate, having her in the news constantly would remind people why they don’t like Republicans very much these days.
The Dish 