Palin's Dem Boost? Not That Big
It's a funny moment in Sarah Palin's career. David Broder is saying we should take her more seriously. Nate Silver is saying she could win the primary in 2012 in a variety of scenarios, and Ace of Spades is talking her down.
What does it mean? Basically, it feels a bit too early in the cycle to actually talk about 2012, but not too late to start playing the perception game. Except, it's all so obvious. The Left wants to talk her up because they perceive her as the least threatening contender, and the Right wants to talk her down because, well, they don't know if the Left is right about this one or not.
What the Democrats know for sure is that their own natural coalition really doesn't like Sarah Palin. Using her name and the threat of her style of politics, brings in the cash and keeps everyone in line on tough votes. In that way, she functions very similarly to the way Hillary Clinton did to the Right in the '90s and the '00s. That's all.
So, my warning is this: the anti-Hillary thing really didn't do much to help the Republicans. I'm not sure that the anti-Palin thing will work to the Democrats' advantage, beyond the money game. It certainly won't make her the nominee; that will be a matter of the state of reality, not Obama's framing.