AS Sarah Palin ponders a 2012 presidential campaign, some prominent Republicans are urging her to resist the temptation to run even as her devoted followers flock to her book tour. In recent days, a debate has broken out among Republicans over whether the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and popular activist would be able to defeat a politically weakened President Barack Obama in two years. The criticism, rejected by Team Palin, reflects concerns among establishment Republicans that the former Alaska governor lacks the gravitas to oust a sitting president, even a struggling one. Palin has a very strong following in the conservative Tea Party movement and her endorsements helped several candidates in congressional and state elections last month. But that has not silenced critics – even within her own party. “What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a resume as thin as Palin's would flirt with a presidential run?” former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, an MSNBC co-host, wrote in an opinion piece for Politico. Mark McKinnon, a former campaign adviser to Republicans George W. Bush and John McCain, wrote in the Daily Beast that he admires Palin's “tenacity, her verve, her moxie and her pluck” but believes she is “perhaps the only Republican nominee who could lose in 2012.” And Barbara Bush, the no-nonsense wife of former President George H.W. Bush and mother of George W. Bush, took a not-so-subtle jab by saying she hopes Palin will “stay in Alaska.” The criticism is raising eyebrows among Republicans who say Palin's detractors should concentrate on defeating Obama. “Republicans should remember Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment, which was ‘don't speak ill of fellow Republicans,'” said Republican strategist Scott Reed. Palin has drawn fire ever since she burst onto the national scene as McCain's running mate in 2008 and was unable to tell an interviewer the publications she read regularly or cite Supreme Court rulings that she disagreed with. She also has been criticized for her speaking style, quitting the governor's job in mid-term and writing notes on her hand. Palin has worked to overcome questions about her intellectual ability by, for example, offering her opinions about Federal Reserve policies. She rarely grants interviews to what she calls the “lame-stream media” but often uses her Twitter and Facebook accounts to jab back at critics. David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, said Palin critics are unlikely to persuade her not to run for the White House if she decides she wants to do so. Male politicians who warn her against running risk sounding condescending, he said. “She is a pretty strong-minded politician in her own right and for somebody to suggest publicly that she shouldn't run is kind of gratuitous,” Yepsen said. “I think there is a danger that it could backfire and make her more adamant.”
