Sarah Palin is a rare object in the political firmament these days,
and no matter how you feel about her, she is luminous, provocative and
fascinating.

Whether she will run for president, much less win the presidency if she
does, is a separate discussion. It is also undecided whether she is a
permanent star, a briefly appearing comet, or just a rapidly blazing
asteroid that evaporates by the time it reaches earth.

Many political party operatives, and career politicians tend to think she
is the latter, and dismiss her long-term appeal. This is predictable. No
one has proprietary rights in her career, at least not yet, and she is a
direct challenge to the Republican party establishment.

John McCain and his campaign organization brought her into view in
2008 by selecting her to be the GOP candidate for vice president of the
United States. Now she has written a book which devotes some pages
to her grievances against some in the campaign staff for how she was
handled in the campaign which, in its end, lost the race to Democrat
Barack Obama. The selection, instead of similarly unknown Minnesota
Governor Tim Pawlenty, clearly indicated McCain’s intuition that he
needed a “hail mary” to reverse the Democratic momentum following
George W. Bush and his unpopular foreign policy.

And it seemed to work. Initial reaction to Mrs. Palin was ecstatic in the
GOP grass roots, and among women, especially young conservative and
independent-minded women. The bias against Governor Palin in the Old
Media was palpable and overt. After some TV interviews, her image
among independent voters was tarnished. But she remained a net-plus
for the McCain ticket. Polls taken after the election indicate she attracted
votes among the GOP base more than did McCain himself. The real reason
John McCain lost the presidency was the bursting of the mortgage bank
bubble in mid-September. Until that time, polls indicated the Republican
ticket either slightly ahead or tied with the Democratic ticket. In fact, it
can be safely argued that, had not Governor Palin been on the ticket,
Senator McCain would not have done as well as he did. Although I think
Tom Ridge would have had more appeal to independents and was better
prepared then to be vice president, the mortgage banking crisis probably
doomed any Republican ticket, including one with Joe Lieberman. (And
neither Ridge nor Lieberman would have excited the GOP conservative
base.)

On the other hand, Governor Palin made some notable media mistakes on
the campaign trail which have persisted beyond election day. To realize her
national ambitions and to correct the image of those mistakes, she took
two major steps. First, she resigned as governor of Alaska. Second, she
wrote an autobiography. The former was controversial at the time, but
increasingly appears as a smart move. The latter has just been released,
and is already a huge national best-seller. The Old Media, and some of the
New Media, which has been so critical of her, are being forced to re-evaluate
the political phenomenon of Sarah Palin. She is now undoubtedly the most
talked-about and reported-about politician in America of either party.

As speculation about 2012 grows, she is on every list of likely serious GOP
candidates. The front-runner on that list is Mitt Romney, followed by Mike
Huckabee. The new dark horse is retiring Minnesota Governor Pawlenty.
Newt Gingrich still looms in the background. There will likely be new
candidates.

She has recently been making the rounds of conservative network and cable
TV programs, as well as given interviews to conservative radio hosts to
promote her new book. Liberal TV figure Oprah Winfrey has featured Mrs.
Palin on her show. Whether or not voters agree with her political views, Mrs.
Palin is showing an increased grasp of the domestic and international issues
facing the country.

But the answer to the question “What is it about Sarah Palin?” is to be found
in her personality. That she has star quality is now undeniable. Her manner
of speaking, which upset some at the outset of her national exposure, is
becoming more and more acceptable as part of her political attraction. The
question that remains is whether or not she can sustain her new momentum,
enhance her public policy skills, and take it to a presidential campaign 2-3
years from now.

My guess, given the vacuum of other bright objects in the American political
sky and her demonstrated ability to come back from defeat, is that her
best days are perhaps ahead.