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Posts Tagged ‘Theodore Roosevelt’
December 9th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Will Palin Save or Destroy the GOP?
Posted by Print

Today’s version of the Washington Post’s “The Fix” blog notes that Sarah Palin gave a radio interview over the weekend where she seemed to leave the door open to a third party presidential run in 2012.  This could potentially be politically disastrous for the GOP come Election Day.

Under present circumstances, Palin probably doesn’t have a strong enough coalition to take the GOP nomination. What she does have, however, is an intensity of support that would likely lead many of her supporters to follow her out of the Republican Party’s presidential fold.  Given the schismatic tendencies that the Tea Party movement has begun to show, Palin could also potentially have a much more organized, coherent base than most independent candidates.

This prospect is just one more impetus for a Republican coalescence before the next presidential race.  From Theodore Roosevelt to Ross Perot, the legacy of strong third-party candidates has tended to be creating murder-suicide pacts with the candidate that they’re ideologically closer to.  If Sarah Palin bolts the GOP in 2012, she may end up spending two election cycles in a row being blamed for Barack Obama’s presidency.