My “agenda” . . . is to present the historical evidence that a Palin/0bama rematch is political suicide to anyone who might think it is a good idea. If your agenda is to reelect Barack Hussein 0bama, Jr. in 2012, then it is a good strategy to run him against someone he’s already defeated as his opponent. You eliminate most of the unknowns in a situation that has proven to heavily favor your candidate. You can’t get much more of a sure thing than that.
Undoubtedly you can cite more than one case of a presidential aspirant getting a party's nomination twice, and losing a rematch against the sitting president. Certainly Adlai Stevenson would be an example. I just don't accept that it would be a "rematch" for Sarah Palin to run for president for the first time.The difference between president and vice president is pretty much the difference between "lightning" and "lightning bug." That's why, although the VP nominee is always selected to "bring something to the ticket" electorally, you can't name any VP nominee who made the difference in a presidential campaign. If McCain had won, he wouldn't have said, "I owe it all to Sarah Palin" - even tho in his case it would actually have been true.
I will agree that I am not optimistic about '12 unless the Republican VP nominee is a pit dog who is able, and cleared by his presidential running mate, to go after Obama hammer and tongs. Which certainly does not describe how John McCain used his VP nominee. I consider it possible that the best VP nominee to run with Sarah Palin - or whoever - might be an unknown black conservative who could throw back charges of racism and be an effective advocate for actual colorblindness in politics.
People vote for the person.
They had a chance to vote for both Sarah Palin and Barack 0bama in 2008.
10 million more people came out to vote for 0bama than came out to vote for Palin.
If we tried it again in 2012, we’d have the same result.
In fact, every rematch in moder times has resulted in the losing candidate increasing the margin they lost by.
It happened with Dewey in his rematch against Truman, Stevenson in his rematch against Eisenhower, and Mondale in his rematch to avenge the Carter administration against Reagan.
I see no reason why Palin would buck history, especially when her ticket lost by a larger margin than Dewey, Stevenson, or Carter. That tells me that she would go down like Mondale the second time around.