Political World On Fire.What Will Palin Say In Iowa/N.Hampshire Sat-Monday?

For someone who has been written off by the media countless times, Sarah Palin is surely creating a firestorm of speculation. It is amazing how someone considered “irrelevant” and “yesterday’s person” can have media descending on a Tea Party meeting in Iowa which Palin will attend this Saturday, with CSPAN televising her address.

Now, with the confirmed announcement that Palin will  attend a Tea party event in New Hampshire (which Romney will also address), the media and bloggers have exploded into a frenzy of speculation. Hot Air commentors – Perry and Palin supporters – particularly have exploded, in a plethora of comments with the usual personal attacks as they defend their favorite.

More partisan Palin sites like Texans for Palin give insider detail, and the irrepressibly pro-Palin site Conservatives4Palin has hundreds of comments from chewing-their-nails Palin supporters, who have been busily working out car pooling details on getting to the Iowa event from all over the USA.

The mainstream media – ABC News  The Washington Post – and high profile blog sites like Politico, Real Clear Politics, etc. have been covering the upcoming events in detail, and the pace of this will only increase as the countdown commences – “only three more days” trumpets a Conservatives4Palin headline.

There is, of course, good reason for all this fervour. The 2012 campaign can’t really commence until Palin makes her decision whether to run, and if she does not run, whom she will endorse. There are tactical considerations, as the Washington Post article presents – e.g., if she gets in, will Romney benefit if she takes support from Perry?

Will a Palin candidacy collapse the religious conservative support for Bachman/Cain/Santorum as I speculated, and if that support goes to Palin, does that put her in the lead or close to it? 

Since Palin will not have the vetting period that all other candidates get, which explains their rise after they announce, and, like Bachmann, their steady subsequent decline – will her “post announcement bump” prove to be a permanent solid base?

There is also a lot of pundit career enhancing or destroying riding on Palin’s announcement which, she indicated will come in September, so the Labor Day scenario is not necessarily the end game-yet.

I have compiled a list, with links to their statements, so there is no denying them, of 78 pundits who stated that Palin will run and 56 famous pundits who said Palin won’t run. I look forward to presenting both lists, with the appropriate “eating crow” symbol anytime from September 3rd to September 30th.

Having not spared myself in the list of prognosticators, there will be one more person thus added to the list of pundits, fans, enemies, candidates, “Trig isn’t Palin’s child” fantasists, I-told-you-so smart alecks from either side, satirists, and late night talk show hosts. 

This disparate crowd, who are variously – anxiously, nail chewingly, dreadingly, happily – waiting on the phenomenon that is Sarah Palin. Well, as C4P breathlessly stated, “only 3 days to go.”

ORIGINAL POST AT:M.JOSEPH SHEPPARD’s “A POINT OF VIEW“