Palin Teases The Teabaggers (But Can't Win)

Sarah Palin is still at it.   She's still teasing her teabagger horde with thoughts that she might actually run for president.   She's been saying lately that she'll run if she sees that no one else will campaign on the nonsense that she spouts, and her her teabaggin' supporters love it.   They have visions of an inaugural hoedown at the White House, complete with caribou chili, hunting boots and hellfire preaching (and not a liberal or minority to be seen).

And she's decided to prolong the exquisite agony for her few followers.   In an interview with Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America" (aired last Friday), Palin said she was still giving a run for the presidency "prayerful consideration".   But she said that she's still months away from deciding.   She told Roberts,   "You know, other folks can jump in, and that kind of helps you get the lay of the land.   But my decision won't be made for some months still."

She also said she wouldn't be deterred by polls that say other candidates would do better against President Obama.   She blamed the media again for that saying,   "Every word that I speak is scrutinized and ultimately, in some corners of the world, it gets mocked and ridiculed and spun into something that it is not."   Frankly, if she's that thin-skinned (and she is) then she shouldn't enter the race at all -- because every presidential candidate is put under the media microscope and every syllable they utter is picked apart.   That's just part of the game.

But she should start worrying about the polls, because they just keep getting worse for her.   A new ABC News/Washington Post poll released on December 17th shows that a significant majority of the American people would not even consider voting for Palin, and only a tiny fraction of the voters say they would definitely vote for her.   The poll has a margin of error of 3.5%.   Here are the numbers for Palin:

Would definitely vote for her...............8%
Would consider voting for her...............31%
Would NOT consider voting for her...............59%

Those are some pretty terrible numbers for someone thinking of spending millions of dollars to run for president.   And even with her incessant twitters, FaceBook pronouncements, and a TV reality show (which has lost viewers every week), her numbers are not improving.   In fact, they are getting worse.   Last year the percentage that said they would not consider voting for her was 53%.

But it doesn't surprise me that she is delaying her decision.   She's making too much money as a political celebrity to give it up.   And she knows that if she says she's not going to run she'll become yesterday's news in a flash -- and then all that money will stop coming in.

I think she'll run because she wants to stay in the spotlight as long as possible and keep the dollars flowing into her bank account.   But right now she's having too good a time teasing her teabaggers, so she'll draw out the speculation for as long as she can (and she can claim the polls don't matter since she's not a declared candidate).

But let her play her silly little game.   I'm just glad the voters are crazy enough to consider her a viable candidate.

P.S. -- Even Bloomberg has better numbers than Palin, and he's as big a long-shot as there is.