Shushannah Walsh: Could This Be the Week Sarah Palin Gets in the Race?

In Iowa, "a state senator and a donor with another campaign" are ready to jump to Palin.
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Shushannah Walsh, speculating at ABC News' The Note, points out that while Gov. Palin had told Jake Tapper that the end of September was "kind of a drop-dead timeline” for a decision on whether to get into the presidential race, the first Republican woman to be her party's vice presidential candidate also agreed with Sean Hannity that the end of October would be the latest she could announce because of legal filing deadlines. Walshe, like everyone else with the likely exception of Todd Palin, reviews the clues in search of a decision date for the Mama Grizzly whose tracks more recently resemble those of the Arctic Fox:

Saturday’s P5 or Presidential 5 Conference Straw Poll sponsored by the Florida GOP was a clear rejection of the two frontrunners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Despite strong speeches by Herman Cain—who won the poll with 37 percent of the vote—the delegates were definitely looking for another candidate and that is sure to be another signal to Palin that she can still get in. Of course, Perry’s poor performance at Thursday night’s Fox News/Google debate is another sign that getting in to the race late isn’t easy.

Steve Bannon, who made the Palin documentary, “The Undefeated” and remains close to Palin, thinks it’s a “big opportunity” because “the current list of candidates have failed to catch the imagination of either the conservative movement or the general electorate.”

“She’s making her own decision. It’s exactly what she has said 1,000 times. It’s her own decision and it’s in consultation with her family and through prayer, and that’s what I’m sure she’s spending a lot of time thinking about in Alaska,” Bannon told ABC News. “This is a life-altering decision.”

Just last week, SarahPAC sent out a fundraising appeal asking for donations because, as the message put it, Palin was “on the verge of making her decision of whether or not to run for office.”

That money cannot be used for a presidential campaign and, although the PAC will need funds, whether she runs or not it could be seen as a sign that she’s not going to get in the race and the organization is trying to pad the coffers before she lets the world know. Of course, if she does enter the race, money is likely to pour in as soon as she announced.

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At least in the first caucus state of Iowa, Palin has help outside of the network of grassroots volunteers. A longtime GOP fundraiser in the state who has become a friend of the Palins, Becky Beach is ready to start raising money if Palin pulls the trigger, but even she has no idea if she will get in the race.

“I don’t know if she will or she won’t run, but if she does decide to do it I’ve already had a state senator and a donor with another campaign say if she were to get in they would jump to her,” Beach said.

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From Sun Tzu, the great military strategist, we are reminded that all warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, feign inactivity. Offer your enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder, and then strike when he is least prepared for it. Those skilled in war avoid the enemy when his spirit is keen and attack him when it is sluggish.

- JP