Saul Relative challenges the conventional wisdom on a Palin run

"Sarah Palin just might be the Republican to beat in the GOP presidential race"
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For months now, the political pundits has been assuring each other their readers that Sarah Palin will not run for president in 2012. Yahoo/Associated Content contributor Saul Relative challenges that "conventional wisdom":

Sarah Palin, the politician that the media loves to cover ad nauseum, will most likely announce her candidacy for president sometime in the near future (some are saying she may wait until September). Everything seems to be falling her way of late, or at least it appears that way when looking at how things are shaping up within the field of potential candidates in the Republican Party. It is almost as if Fate were stepping in to take a hand in positioning things just right for the former governor of Alaska...

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Huckabee, out. Trump, out. Gingrich, in but knocking himself out. Three of the four potential candidates that were either ahead of or within a few points of Palin in the polls have taken themselves out of consideration. And the fourth? Getting waylaid by his own policies from when he was governor.

A recent Gallup poll places Palin just two points back of Mitt Romney (18 percent to 20 percent, respectively) and well within the margin of error (=/- 3) as the preferred GOP candidate. That same poll had Gingrich in third with an 11 percent posting, but the poll was released the day after the former Speaker made his remarks and began receiving widespread conservative condemnation, so it is difficult to say where Gingrich supporters might fall if they believe he torpedoed his chances of winning the nomination.

And Palin can afford to take her time with her entrance into the race. She has plenty of name recognition and a solid base of support. She also has her own political action committee, so she won't have to worry about financing her campaign.

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But with all the major Republican hopefuls dropping by the wayside and the early health care-related troubles being experienced by Romney, it would appear that Sarah Palin, who looked like an almost-ran a few months ago, just might be the Republican to beat in the GOP presidential race. Even though many predicted she would not run, with the field thinning down, the biggest political shocker this season would be if Palin decided not to run.

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Relative doesn't mention the apparent Clan Palin purchase of an 8,000 square foot home in Scottsdale, Arizona -- a part of the country much better suited for establishing a campaign base than remote Alaska. And his op-ed was written before news broke about the two-hour Palin documentary film which will have its premiere in the mission-critical primary state of Iowa, of all places.

Sarah Palin has been defying the conventional wisdom for the better party of two decades now. She's been proving the pundits wrong her entire political career. 2012 will be no different than when she became a governor in 2006 or a mayor in 1996, except on a much larger scale, of course. Both times, she surprised the "experts" when she ran and proved them wrong when she won. Game on!

- JP