Doctor Zero: Sarah Palin is the heart and soul of the Right.

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Doctor Zero, from Hot Air's Green Room:

The election of 2012 will be a savage battle, and all the arrows coming at Palin will be dipped in poison. The Republican electorate would like to see some x-rays of the fire in her belly before they get behind her.

Some of the softness in Palin’s support is probably sympathetic. She’s doing great work for the conservative cause as a private citizen, and enjoying an incredibly successful career. Her quest for the White House would be a roller coaster leading into a meat grinder. There’s a quivering lunatic in a tattered lab coat hanging around the loading platform, mumbling something about discovering the real mother of her son. Is she ready to strap her family into that ride again? Would anyone blame her for deciding not to?

Personally, I hope she does.

[...]

I’ve said before that a large government is, by definition, more emotional than rational. The problem is that dismantling such a government will require passion. The project must rest upon a sound, logical foundation, but there is simply no way to succeed without engaging Big Government on its own emotional terms.

The path to American renewal will be extremely difficult to follow. The morale of our citizens will be a serious concern. Regardless of how awful a president Barack Obama has been, the media will present his defeat in 2012 as a tragedy, bordering on a national sin. They’ll push that meme harder as his failures pile up. We need leadership that combines good cheer, fiery determination, and intelligent mastery of the issues.

Mitt Romney is cut from polished wood, and Newt Gingrich is origami folded from a thousand position papers, blotted with ugly scozzafava stains that may never come out. At this moment in time, Sarah Palin is the heart and soul of the Right. I can understand why many Republican voters might be reluctant to go into the next election with their hearts on their sleeves, but that’s the only way to win… and achieve the mandate necessary to do what needs to be done.

These are, of course, only the excerpts. Read the Doctor's commentary unabridged here.

- JP