James Pethokoukis: Emergence of Palinomics hints at 2012 run

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James Pethokoukis, the Money & Politics columnist for Reuters, writes that the the politics and timing of Gov. Palin's recent op-eds and speeches dealing with monetary policy and the dollar are the latest additions to a mounting stack of evidence that the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate will make a run for the White House:

Indeed, the campaign team for putative Republican frontrunner and former banker Mitt Romney is assuming she will be in the race. And her upcoming, much-hyped reality television show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” will no doubt play like an extended campaign commercial.

If Palin does run, her views leave her — not for the first time — well positioned to exploit the zeitgeist. Voters right now seem dubious of Big Anything, be it Government, Business or Money. In her 2009 book, “Going Rogue,” Palin offered a rehash of 1980s Reaganomics — low taxes, less government spending, strong dollar. That’s in sync with her recent Fed-bashing. But she also attacked “corporatism” in which government and business conspire against entrepreneurs and consumers. This view fuels Palin’s critique of Obama’s financial reform plan, which she portrays as a creation of Wall Street designed to perpetuate bank bailouts.

Palinomics seems to be rooted in “free-market populism,” a version of conservative thinking that is pro-market rather than pro-business. Palin is a big fan of one of its champions, the University of Chicago’s Luigi Zingales. So it’s easy to imagine her campaigning against corporate tax breaks, say, or in favor of limiting the size of banks. That might not attract much campaign cash from Manhattan bankers or Washington lobbyists, but it could be a compelling formula in the new Tea Party-infused Republican party.

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More to come as the punditocracy continues to try to divine what is written in the tea leaves...

- JP