Baseless Speculation: Palin in 2012 edition

Just because it will be fun to look back and see how wrong I was:

The question going around the blogs right now is, assuming an Obama win, how do things go for Palin in 2012?

Palin has got a large group of base supporters if she wants them. But enough to win the GOP nomination? I don't think so. And this is why: I continue to believe that the next republican primaries will be heavily influenced by who was for and who was against the $700 billion bailout. McCain's last chance to steal this election was to come out against the bailout. It would have differentiated him from Obama AND Bush. But he didn't do it, and it will cost him. I saw a recent poll that said that 50% of Montanans are still against the bailout, with only 22% in favor of it. I would expect this is a common figure throughout the country.

This is why the bailout is key: after Obama and the Dems take over and the economy continues to sink the GOP will start to blame the crappy economy on government intervention. Nobody will believe them (at least for a while), but its the only card they know how to play. The bailout battle has been somewhat forgotten in the heat of the election, but I predict it will come back as the true litmus test for conservatives. Who was for it, and who was against it?

Unfortunately for her, Palin is tied directly to McCain and the bailout. Don't know how she gets out of that one.

Huckabee was pretty vocally against the bailout.

Romney, was for the bailout (he's a wall street kind of guy).

So I see the 2012 primaries shaking out this way: Palin is strong among the Limbaugh and "Obama is a Muslim" crowd. They will never vote for Huckabee because he is not a pure free marketeer nor willing to sound like a racist. That's still not enough for Palin to win though.

Romney takes the economic conservative/social liberal people and the wall street-money people.

And Huckabee rails against the bailout and big government while still offering his trademark compassionate message, and at the same time stealing southern evangelicals and joe six packs away from Palin.

Who wins out of all of this?

I think it would be close. But I'd put Huckabee at the top of the heat narrowly.