Sarah Palin Throws Brokered Convention Threat at Mitt Romney

Oh boy. Sarah Palin is at it again.  Yes, she’s flirting with the disaffected Tea Party base and brokered conventions while baring her mama grizzly teeth at poor Mitt Romney.  She’s not closing any doors, no matter how much the Republican Party wishes she would.

Ms Palin told CNN yesterday that she isn’t ruling out a run in 2012, “Anything is possible. I don’t close any doors that perhaps would be open out there, so no, I wouldn’t close that door. My plan is to be at that convention.”

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Rubbing it in, Palin said, “I want to see the process continue, more debate about who it is, who can bust through the Orwellian Obama rhetoric and pandering that we see in the incumbent, who can bust through that with facts, history and logic and common sense, in order for American voters to understand we do have a choice. There is a contrast between the incumbent Barack Obama, and any of the four on the GOP ticket.”

This is actually a good, off-the-cuff interview for Palin, though riddled with her usual inaccuracies and outright factual errors. For example, it’s disingenuous for Republicans to claim that the Obama administration is “weakening the military” (note how they never address the fact that their own behavior forced them into a situation where cuts were necessary and they couldn’t agree on cuts in the Super Committee, so automatic cuts kicked in for defense spending), but heck, given that every single Republican candidate has resorted to the Fox version of reality, Palin doesn’t seem so odd anymore.

Compared to Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin looks daffy instead of dangerous; but we realize looks can be deceiving. Still, she pales in comparison on the fear chart for domestic issues; but on national security, the mere notion of Sarah Palin in the White House is enough to…. Oh, God.

Palin is keeping her determined little feet in that door, dangling her naughty monkey from her bedazzled toes, taunting the Republican Party with all she’s got.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party is doing all it can to stop the whispers of a possible  “brokered convention.” You’ll hear Republican strategists refer often to the Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton primary, as if the same result can be expected for the Republican Party. But the situations are far from similar.

While the 2008 Democratic primary was vicious and left a bitter taste in its aftermath (comment boards weren’t safe), what sets the Democratic primary apart from the 2012 Republican primary is the fact that both candidates in the Democratic primary generated wild, unbreakable support, whereas the Republican Party can’t stand behind any of its candidates for longer than a few months. They come and they go, and no one seems to mind.

Mitt Romney doesn’t galvanize the base and he never will. He is simply the guy they think has the best chance of beating Obama. He’s not going to inspire people who wouldn’t normally vote to get out and vote. He’s not going to fire the base up to vote down the ticket.  Mitt Romney is the establishment’s pick, and even among the establishment, he’s not a favored son.

Poor Mitt can’t stop looking behind him. There’s Rick and Newt and now, Sarah Palin calling him a weak candidate. Fox Business kept asking Palin what she would do if the Party begged her to run. Begged. She was coy and good spirited, in what can only be seen as a bad news, until he asked what she would do if asked to run for VP. For some reason, Palin was outraged at the idea and said it would take a lot of presumption for any of the candidates to dare ask her to do that given what she suffered in 2008. I guess in Sarah’s mind, running for President is so much easier than running for VP.

And that little mind burp lands us right back to where we started. Sarah Palin is playing games again and she’s not making any sense. Of course, that isn’t news. But what is news is that Sarah Palin is going to mess with Mitt Romney up until the bitter end.

The Republican Party is reaping what it sowed.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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