Palin: No Decision Coming; Maybe By The End of October

As her self-imposed September decision deadline fast approaches, Palin says she won't be deciding, at least not in the next 24 hours.

“This is a serious decision, and I’ve engaged in serious deliberations. So within the next 24 hours don’t look for me to make a decision,” she said, according to excerpts of an interview on Fox Business Network set to air tonight.

Last week her PAC sent out fundraising letters stating that she's on the "verge" of making a decision.

The letter was written on Sept. 20 by Tim Crawford, the Treasurer of Palin's political fundraising committee, SarahPAC.

"As you may know, Gov. Palin is on the verge of making her decision of whether or not to run for office," Crawford writes. "It's one of the most difficult and important decisions of her life."

But apparently she wasn't as close to a decision as that letter suggested.

She actually telegraphed this on Hannity's tv show last week, in which, to a question by Hannity, she indicated that November was the new October. Or possibly even later.

he former Alaska governor appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Tuesday, where she hinted ever so slightly that the current "unconventional" political landscape may allow for a later entry. (At the least, she has already proved that the current landscape has allowed would-be candidates to drag out their decisions much longer than one would expect.)

Here was her response to Hannity’s first question about whether she was ready to jump in the race: "There is still time, Sean, and I think on both sides of the aisle you’re going to see people coming and going in this race. … And I’m still one of those still considering the time factor."

Hannity responded by saying that Palin would need to decide by November in order to make it onto state ballots across the country, to which the former Alaska governor agreed. Kind of.

"You do, I mean legally you do because you have to start getting your ducks lined up to have your name on these ballots," she said. "But I do think, Sean, this is going to be such an unconventional election cycle because this has been such an unconventional administration that we are fighting so hard."

Whether the election will be "unconventional" or not, state election officials will probably take a very conventional approach to the subject of filing deadlines.

I'm not sure Palin actually intended to suggest she might skip the Florida primary (October 31st filing deadline) or was just speaking broadly. If she is considering skipping a crucial primary, then that might suggest she's considering running third party (as some of her most recent soundbites also suggest).

If she does, I really, sincerely hope that almost none of her supporters continue following her into that Hell. That would be gift-wrapping the election for "Mr. Obama there," as he's sometimes called.

There are a couple of theories on the reason for the delay. The first is the one favored by a lot of the people who are no longer fond of her -- she's continuing the tease, without any real intent to jump into the race, in order to keep her "relevance" and brand power. The moment she says no, she's just a political commentator with a large-ish audience, but she loses that which makes her truly important, the notion that she might do more than comment on policy. This theory casts her as self-serving and attention-needing.

Another theory, which I prefer, is that she feels she owes her supporters (who have cash-money supported her for years) the candidacy they have their hopes staked on, but doubts that such a run would be successful. So she has a bad decision ahead of her -- announce a candidacy which she would probably lose, or disappoint he supporters, who she doesn't wish to support. Given a bad decision on the horizon, she does what most people do-- she delays it.

The other theory, which I include for completeness, is that she's playing a game of 4th dimensional chess and every decision she makes is supremely well-calculated to put her in the optimal position to win the nomination and the White House. I include this because it seems very popular among her supporters.

There is some truth in it -- by avoiding the debates, she's allowed a chief rival on the right of the party to lose a great deal of his momentum, thus possibly clearing her path by doing exactly nothing.

On the other hand, she doesn't seem to be using this time outside the race to do any of the preparations necessary (or at least extremely helpful) for joining it. She seems to be doing the same basic schtick she's been doing for three years.

posted by Ace at 10:14 AM

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