What If the Iowa Sarah Palin Write in Campaign Prospers?

COMMENTARY | Ed Morrissey at Hot Air relates the story of a campaign being launched by Sarah Palin supporters to persuade Iowa voters to write in the former Alaska governor's name in the upcoming caucus election.

Morrissey speculates that the effort might take off if Iowa voters decide that Mitt Romney is too bland, Newt Gingrich is too mercurial, and Ron Paul is too crazy to be the nominee. This would suggest that Palin would be a convenient place to vote "none of the above." This supposes that these discontented voters do not latch on to one of the other actual candidates, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, or Rick Santorum.

Of course neither Perry, Bachmann, nor Santorum have that Palin magic, the capability to bring venues of tens of thousands of people to their feet. On the other hand, Palin is not in Iowa doing that.

What happens if the write in for Palin does well? What if she does double digits? It is a low probability outcome, but so far this election cycle has been a story of low probability events.

This being the case, the story of the Iowa Caucus will not be who won or who is now fated to drop out due to a poor showing. The winner of the Iowa Caucus, whether it is Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, or Newt Gingrich will be a secondary story to the spectacle of a non candidate getting a small but significant number of votes.

It will be hell for reporters, who will now be obliged to trek up to Wasilla, Alaska in the dead of winter to beg interviews and try to figure out the meaning of it all. Fox News, which employs Palin as a contributing analyst, will be ecstatic. Palin will be on all the evening programs for the following week or so.

This will be a mixed blessing for Palin. She has already said no to a presidential run. Now the voices begging her to say yes will be deafening. Does the unexpected show of support move her to go past the considerations that caused her to decline? Does she stretch out her reconsideration, as is her modus operandi, and tease the question for as long as possible? Do heads explode in the mainstream media which will be forced once again to pay the Lady from Wasilla some attention?

Does she ruefully mutter, like Michael Corleone, "Just when I thought I was out, they keep dragging me back in!"

By the way, pay attention to the "bear" commercials Morrissey links to. The dialogue comes from a famous 1984 Reagan campaign commercial, "There's a Bear in the Woods," which referred to the Soviet threat. In this context it refers to the Mama Grizzly and is an altogether different kind of threat.

Source: It begins: Radio ad asks Iowans to caucus for Palin, Ed Morrissey, Hot Air, Dec 28, 2011