When Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska, she didn’t attract much attention in the rest of the country. She apparently served pretty well in her state.
But she surprisingly burst into national attention when Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain chose her to be his vice presidential running mate. She did OK. But you know what happened: The Obama-Biden ticket overcame the McCain-Palin ticket.
Former Gov. Palin was in the news prominently last weekend in Nashville, as she was the keynote speaker for the hastily organized “National Tea Party” convention.
The Tea Party folks are not happy with either Democrats or Republicans so far as national leadership is concerned. They want to cut spending and reduce big government.
Mrs. Palin’s speech was not a world-beater, but it was widely broadcast. The hotel sound system wasn’t very good, being rather tinny. But now, some people are urging Mrs. Palin to run for president in 2012.
“I would,” she said, “if I believed that is the right thing to do for our country and the Palin family.”
Well, President Barack Obama is no bargain. His poll figures justly have fallen below 50 percent. No big-name Republican has yet emerged as a major prospective presidential nominee for 2012. Any real contender surely will have to appear, generate strong popular support and, unfortunately, raise millions of dollars in campaign money.
But while the performance of President Obama should inform us that we need much better national leadership, we should be aware that we need much better leadership than Mrs. Palin offers.
Who can provide a really sound, principled and able presidential hope in 2012?