 In this Aug. 29, 2008 file photo, Sarah Palin is shown in Dayton, Ohio. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Stephan Savoia, file
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WASHINGTON - She's poised to become the best-selling author in the United States, has a devoted base of conservative supporters and is considered a front-runner to lead the Republicans into the next election in 2012 - and yet key party strategists are tormented by the popularity of Sarah Palin.
The very notion of a Palin candidacy has been derided in recent days by some of the brightest minds in the Republican party even as the former governor of Alaska outlines her policies on Afghanistan, energy and other issues of national importance.
"Were she to be the nominee, we could have a catastrophic election," Steve Schmidt, John McCain's presidential campaign manager last year, said recently.
He was backed by Mike Murphy, a Republican media consultant who also made a point of chastising Schmidt for his role in Palin's rise to international prominence to begin with.
"Steve Schmidt correct about Sarah Palin and '12," Murphy said by way of his Twitter feed. "Shame he didn't feel same way a year ago when he was lobbying McCain to choose her as VP."
Images: The Palin Phenomenon
John Weaver, McCain's closest political adviser for years, also weighed in earlier this week about a Palin candidacy.
"It would surely mean a political apocalypse is upon us," he said.
Yet from her unlikely pulpit - Facebook, and not the governor's office in Wasilla, Alaska - Palin is getting her message out on everything from health-care reform and energy while assailing President Barack Obama for his position on Afghanistan. Many of her 900,000-plus "friends" on the social networking site are cheering her every word.
Her star quality is undisputed - a Canadian is so confident of her popularity that he's selling an Xbox 360 autographed by Palin for US$1.1 million on eBay. Albertan David Morrill's listing features photos of Palin signing the gaming console in Wasilla, Alaska, in July, two days before her surprise announcement that she was stepping down as governor.
No matter, say some observers: there's a gaping disconnect between her fans and those who know what it takes to run a successful political campaign.
"Right now we're in a period where the base likes her as a speaker and as a representative figure for social conservatism, whereas the insiders of the party, the people who vet candidates and run the campaigns, are absolutely terrified that her popularity with the base could translate into her becoming a candidate," Cal Jillson, a politics professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said Wednesday.
"They know that running an 18-month or two-year campaign for president requires endless amounts of hard work, organization and a systematic approach, and she has shown no capability for doing any of that. And they're frightened the base will act on emotion rather than reason."
Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska in July and is at the top of the Amazon charts for her upcoming book, "Going Rogue: An American Life."
The 400-page tome, written with the help of a professional scribe, came together in just four months. It officially goes on sale on Nov. 17, and is said to include details about Palin's infamous clashes with Schmidt during McCain's unsuccessful run for the White House.
Jillson likened the open loathing of Palin by Schmidt and others in the party - and the extraordinary language being used to discredit her - to the vehement opposition Barry Goldwater faced when he made a bid for the Republican nomination in 1964.
"There was a huge division between the Republican party's civilized eastern wing headed by Nelson Rockefeller and then the perceived crazies out west headed by Goldwater and a then-rising Ronald Reagan," Jillson recalled.
Palin's supporters, in fact, often compare her to Reagan as a political figure dismissed as a crank and a lightweight but possessing the political skills and smarts to become a conservative icon. Her book title, in fact, borrows from Reagan's own: "An American Life" was also the subtitle of his best-selling 1990 memoir.
James Lewis of the conservative website American Thinker recently raved about Palin's "first presidential address" in Hong Kong, calling it a "real Reagan speech" that delved into national security, Afghanistan and other issues.
"It almost sounds as if Henry Kissinger is advising her," Lewis wrote. "Palin showed Reagan's classic simplicity and directness, and like the Gipper's best talks, she went straight to the heart of today's political battle."
But the comparisons to Reagan end there, Jillson said, pointing out that the 40th U.S. president put in hard work as a conservative for decades. His political career was jump-started by a rousing speech he gave to the Republican National Convention in 1964, 16 years before he made a successful bid for the White House.
"Ronald Reagan had been a political activist and a spokesman for major corporations for years before he delivered that address that so rallied the conservative base at the Republican National Convention. It was so effective that for a long time, it was simply referred to as 'the speech.' Palin simply doesn't possess those skills."
Schmidt apparently agrees.
"In the year since the election has ended, she has done nothing to expand her appeal beyond the base," he said at a D.C. conference late last week.
"The independent vote is going to be up for grabs in 2012. That middle of the electorate is going to (determine) the outcome of the elections. I just don't see that if you look at the things she has done over the yeara that she is going to expand that base in the middle."
