Palin has no shot in 2012

By Paul Goldman and Mark J. Rozell

While Sarah Palin appears to be plotting an unconventional campaign, history says she is just one of the boys: Earl Warren, Henry Cabot Lodge, Ed Muskie, Sargent Shriver, Bob Dole, Walter Mondale, Joe Lieberman and John Edwards. They are the charter members of an elite "sore loser's" club.

Like former Alaska governor Palin, each ran as the vice presidential nominee on a defeated national ticket in the modern era. Four years later, all of them launched bids to win their party's presidential nomination, convinced Americans had no choice but to realize that they had made a big mistake. Except for Mondale, unique because he had previously won a national election as Jimmy Carter's running mate, each lost badly. Mondale survived near disaster to become the 1984 Democratic presidential standard-bearer, only to get crushed by the same Reagan-Bush ticket.

It doesn't take Sir Isaac Newton to develop this first law of motion for national politics: Any vice presidential nominee on a losing ticket stays in that state of uniform motion through the next presidential cycle. If Americans believe the country needs to change direction, they aren't going to turn to a candidate they rejected four years earlier, running in good measure on the "I told you so" mantra of a sore loser.

Starting with former governor Warren's attempt to win the 1952 GOP presidential nod (he ran on the losing 1948 ticket headed by Tom Dewey) the first law of national political motion has an eight-for-eight perfect 100% predictive record. Palin, should she run, would make it nine straight, a textbook case.

FDR vs. Palin

Before the TV age, Franklin Delano Roosevelt managed to win the White House 12 years after losing badly as the Democratic vice presidential candidate. In the interim, he overcame polio, gave a widely praised national convention nomination speech for Al Smith, twice won election as New York governor and earned a reputation as the country's most reform-minded governor. This record stands in stark contrast to Palin's post-defeat actions, starting with resigning as governor.

As the first law of national political motion predicts, she remained moving in the same direction as her party's foremost anti-Obamacon.

The logic behind the law is based on the nature of the vice presidential selection process. To garner a presidential nomination, a candidate must win the hearts and minds of vast numbers of Americans through primaries and caucuses. Becoming the Veep nominee requires capturing the allegiance of a single person. Palin didn't win a merit-selection process. Ironically, but for John McCain, it is likely Palin would still be governor of Alaska, with possibly a success-based claim on a presidential nomination next year.

Instead, she took the easy path. Like the eight men listed above, she believed running for vice president would be a shortcut to the presidency. Palin refuses to accept any meaningful responsibility for 2008, blaming her loss on everyone or anything but herself. She is therefore typical of the other similarly situated sore losers.

A vice presidential nominee is right in believing he or she had a limited role in the campaign outcome. But this truism apparently leads losers to conclude they live a charmed life, immune from any negative fallout while reaping all the positive benefits of achieving national recognition on the cheap.

Palin achieved national fame by pure luck, plucked from obscurity in Alaska. The McCain-Palin ticket suffered the biggest defeat to a non-incumbent Democratic ticket in nearly four generations. Her performance in the campaign got negative reviews by most unbiased Republican commentators. And recently, a Washington Post/ABC poll showed that almost two-thirds of the public would not vote for Palin if she were the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.

By 2016, however …

Her attacks on the president have earned intense loyalty from a narrow segment of the electorate, but any additional support for her rests heavily on name recognition.

By quitting as governor, she chose the freedom to criticize others over accepting the opportunity to show her ability to solve problems. It is the ultimate "sore loser" approach.

Having rejected McCain and Palin for Obama and Joe Biden, Americans aren't going to see Palin any differently from the other sore losers who claimed to be the nation's salvation four years later.

However, by 2016, the law of national political motion will no longer apply. Richard Nixon, defeated for president in 1960, won eight years later. Bob Dole got nominated for president 20 years after losing as the Veep candidate.

Palin might win the presidency, but not in 2012. Sore losers are sure losers.

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