I doubt she will endorse anybody for another month or so. She can wait for the next set of debates, and also watch to see if Cain can hold up, and starts building some sort of actual campaign mechanism.
Cain probably needs the endorsement most, if only because it might give him boots on the ground in important states that he hasn’t bothered to put together yet. He could also use Bachmann or Santorum to drop out and endorse him, for the same reasons.
Cain looks like he is destined to be a Fred Thompson; Thompson rose in the polls, and looked like a winner, but entered so late he never got a real campaign staff in place. Cain has been around for a long time now, but all reports suggest that he also never really put a campaign team together in all the states, so he might have a problem with getting people out to vote, given the high-profile local and state politicians who are signed on to various campaigns.
I’m more interested in who Bob McDonnell chooses to endorse in Virginia. He is waiting until after our November elections. He did express a preference for Governors, and I assumed there was a chance he’d endorse Palin if she entered. Now that she hasn’t, his preference could limit him to Huntsmann, Romney, Perry, or Gary Johnson. Since he didn’t pick Romney in 2008, I doubt he would in 2012 (our Lt. Governor is already on the Romney team again).
He is a very popular governor, and has an excellent team in place — so if he DID endorse Cain, it might give Cain a big boost in the state.
I am hopeful that Palin DOES endorse someone to fight Romney. It would be a risk for her, because if she does and then Romney wins, her influence would be less. But I doubt she is going to make a decision on that criteria.
I think Cain has been in it linger than Thompson was already.
I hope she does too, but, I hope she doesn’t wait to long.
If she endorsed Cain and Romney won, I don’t see how that would affect her influence since Cain most resembles the Tea Party and Romney doesn’t.
Meant to add that most people know that Romney and Perry have large war machines so they know it will be tough getting good Tea Party candidates past them.