By: Guest ContributorOct. 3rd, 2009more from Guest Contributor

In response to former McCain advisor Steve Schmidt saying that nominating Sarah Palin as the GOP presidential nominee in 2012 would be a catastrophe for the party, Team Palin urged people to go buy her book. Instead of putting together a staff for a potential presidential campaign, Sarah Palin is trying to sell books.

Steve Schmidt spoke to Marc Ambinder about Palin’s 2012 prospects. He said, “I think that she has talents, but my honest view is that she would not be a winning candidate for the Republican candidate in 2012, and in fact, were she to be the nominee, we would have a catastrophic election result.”

Schmidt explained that Palin can’t win the middle, “In the year since the election has ended, she has done nothing to expand her appeal beyond the base. … The independent vote is going to be up for grabs in 2012. That middle of the electorate is going to be determinative of the outcome of the elections. I just don’t see that if you look at the things she has done over the year … that she is going to expand that base in the middle.”

You would expect that Palin’s spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton, would have a strong response to this criticism, but instead she told people to buy Palin’s upcoming book, “The Governor will write about all of this in her book. There will be plenty of time to talk about it then.”

The sniping between the McCain and Palin camps is nothing new. It started even before the election ended last year, but what is interesting is that Palin seems more interested in making money than running for president. While Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Tim Pawlenty are busy organizing their presidential campaign staffs, Palin is trying to sell books. Heck, even Rick Santorum has gone to Iowa.

It is looking like the bigger things that Palin talked about moving on to when she resigned as governor of Alaska this summer, involve making a big pile of money. Palin probably could win the GOP nomination if she was serious about it, but Schmidt was correct. She would be a disaster for the GOP.

Her support doesn’t go beyond the Republican base. More importantly, she is so unpopular with Democrats and Independents that having her at the top of the ticket would drag down other Republicans.