Yesterday, the NYT and other outlets reported that former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani has decided against running for governor of New York.  But the Daily News is reporting that he is instead “very likely” to run in the special election to fill the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate seat.

The Republican heavyweight was considered the GOP’s best shot at reclaiming the governor’s mansion. The only declared candidate on the Republican side is little-known former Long Island Rep. Rick Lazio.

One source said Giuliani is prepared to run for U.S. Senate against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand next year to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s term.

Still, a number of sources said no decision has been made and a Giuliani spokeswoman downplayed the reports. “Rudy has a history of making up his own mind and has no problem speaking it,” she said. “When Mayor Giuliani makes a decision about serving in public office, he will inform New Yorkers on his own.”

[...]

Former Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari, a close Giuliani pal, said the former mayor has shared doubts with him for weeks about running for governor. “What he said to me is that he doesn’t think he’s going to do it,” Molinari said about a conversation earlier this month with the former mayor. “It just didn’t make any sense to him.” Molinari said the ongoing circus in the state Senate, combined with Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s iron grip on Assembly matters, had convinced Giuliani that a Republican governor would have little ability to get things done quickly in Albany. “The big drawback for him was – could I really be effective?” Molinari said. “He saw too many hangups there. He’s not running for the title, that’s for sure.”

That, and the very real possibility he’d lose to popular Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

But it’s not entirely clear what a Senate seat would do for Giuliani, either.  He’s used to making decisions, so he’d be an ineffective legislator.  And if his goal is to run for president again in 2012, it’s not clear how five minutes in the Senate would bolster his resume — as he’d have to hit the campaign trail almost immediately.  He’d be better off going the Newt Gingrich route and simply establishing himself as a Republican Wise Man, doing as many public appearances as possible.

Frankly, 2008 was his best chance and he blew it.  He was at the height of his popularity and running against a lackluster field for the nomination. Yet he ran a joke of a campaign — literally — “A noun, a verb, and 9/11.” As he moves further and further away from the 9/11 attacks, his light dims.

He’ll be 68 during the 2012 race — facing,  should he make it to the nomination, an incumbent president with superb campaign skills — and 72 for 2016.  The latter will be 15 years after his finest hour.

Topping Memeorandum is Mike Allen’s wild speculation for Politico about a presidential run by Roger Ailes.

Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012, top sources tell POLITICO.

“Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that’s what we need now,” says one Ailes friend who is encouraging the Fox founder, chairman and CEO to seek the Republican nomination to run against President Barack Obama.

Ailes, 69, has an aggessive, winning personality that made Fox News a huge success — and a huge target for liberal critics.

Frank Luntz, the well-known Republican pollster, said Ailes could be a force if he makes the run. “I have known Roger Ailes for 29 years,” says Luntz. “No one knows how to win better than Roger.”

Talk of an Ailes run, which informed sources said is based on more than mere speculation, could escalate the White House war with Fox war in wildly unpredictable – and fun – ways.

This is a befuddling idea.

To be sure, Ailes is a smart guy with good strategic sense and a command of Republican ideas. Presumably, he wouldn’t have trouble raising money.  And, until such time as he actually declared, he could get a lot of free air time on the most popular news network on the planet.

But he’s not exactly presidential material.  While one could make the argument that “media mogul” is better preparation for president than “community organizer,” he’s never sought elective office or held comparable positions of responsibility.  In modern times, no person has ever been elected to the presidency — or to my recollection nominated by one of the major parties — without having been vice president, governor, senator, or  a famous general.

I can’t see Ailes breaking that mold.  And he’ll carry the baggage of every silly thing that Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity has ever said with him on the campaign trail.

UPDATE:  Ailes has already dashed this one, citing an obvious point that I neglected to mention:

Fox News President and CEO Roger Ailes is laughing off the entreaties of some friends and associates and will not run for president in 2012, an aide said Friday.

Ailes replied when asked about the possibility, according to the aide: “This country needs fair and balanced news more now than ever before, so I’m going to decline a run for the presidency. Besides, I can’t take the pay cut.”

Can’t say I blame him.

Correction: The original version said no person had been elected president without holding major office. As two commenters rightly point out, Abraham Lincoln (who ran for senator and lost) did just that.  The circumstances were, of course, rather more unusual in 1860 than 2008.  Relying on more than my memory, I quickly discovered that James Madison had not been more than a member of the House prior to his election.  They seem to be the only exceptions.

Taegan Goddard links a Public Policy Polling survey [PDF] showing that President Obama would have beaten the most commonly mentioned Republican hopefuls had the election been held from October 16th to 19th and opened to registered voters.  (I hasten to add, it wasn’t.)

In fact, according to the survey, “Obama leads Mike Huckabee 47-43, Mitt Romney 48-40, Sarah Palin 52-40, and Tim Pawlenty 50-30.”

Considering that Huckabee, Romney, and Pawlenty remain virtual unknowns to most Americans and Obama is the sitting president, I’m not sure this is as depressing news for the GOP as PPP’s Tom Jensen seems to think.  Indeed, Huckabee is actually within the poll’s margin of error!

Look, the 2012 election’s a ridiculously long time from now and it’s pretty silly even talk about it.  Still, as Dave Schuler notes, it’s a Thursday.  Obama’s quite popular and, while his approval is plummeting by historical standards, it’s still pretty good all things considered.  Given our propensity for re-electing sitting presidents, the fact that the economy is bound to be better by mid-2012, and that the Republican Party seems to be in disarray, I’d say Obama is an early favorite to win a second term.  But we’ll have a much better idea in, say, two years.

My strong hunch is that neither Huckabee nor Palin will be the Republican nominee.  The party traditionally nominates the person whose “turn” it is, which would seemingly point to Romney.  But given how sick everyone is with the Washington wing of the GOP, I wouldn’t be shocked if some governor who’s never run before emerges out of nowhere.

Bruce Bartlett explains why he’s not a Republican anymore using a time-honored refrain:  He didn’t leave his party; his party left him.  While he now considers himself an “independent,” he’s more than non-partisan; he’s “anti-Republican.”  Why?

I still consider myself to be a Reaganite. But I don’t see any others anywhere in the GOP these days, which is why I consider myself to be an independent. Mindless partisanship has replaced principled conservatism. What passes for principle in the party these days is “what can we do to screw the Democrats today.”

[...]

I think the Republican Party is in the same boat the Democrats were in in the early eighties — dominated by extremists unable to see how badly their party was alienating moderates and independents. The party’s adults formed the Democratic Leadership Council to push the party back to the center and it was very successful. But there is no group like that for Republicans. That has left lunatics like Glenn Beck as the party’s de facto leaders. As long as that remains the case, I want nothing to do with the GOP.

It’s true that moderates have largely been driven from the leadership ranks of the Republican Party.  But they’ve also been driven from the leadership ranks of the Democratic Party. The combination of gerrymandered districts and the permanent campaign have incentivized polarization.

Still, John McCain, the GOP nominee in last November’s election, was from the moderate wing of the party, beating out a slew of more ideologically pure contenders. George W. Bush, the standard-bearer in 2000 and 2004, ran as a “compassionate conservative.”  Mushy moderate Mitt Romney is the most probable nominee for 2012.

The idea that Glenn Beck is somehow the leader of the party is absurd. Given that the United States lacks a shadow government, the out-of-power party has no obvious leader.   Who was the leader of the Democrats after John Kerry lost in 2004?  Certainly, it wasn’t Barack Obama, who was a mere state senator and U.S. Senator-elect.

Also rather silly:

I see no way a Republican can retake the White House for the foreseeable future. Both CBO and OMB are predicting better than 4% real growth in 2011 and 2012. If those numbers are even remotely correct Obama will have it in the bag.

So, the “foreseeable future” is the same as “in the next election”? Yes, barring serious scandal, Obama is likely to be re-elected if the economy is good.  Incumbent presidents always win re-election when the economy is good! Indeed, their party tends to hold power even if the incumbent can’t run again.  At worst, they lose in close and controversial contests as in 1960 and 2000. But that doesn’t tell us anything about the state of the opposition party.  Voters simply prefer to keep the current team on when things are going well and to change horses when they aren’t.

Also, Republicans have to find a way to win some minority votes because it is not viable as a whites-only party in presidential elections. That’s why I wrote my Wrong on Race book, which no one read.

Well, why would anyone bother to read a book whose take-away is a sentence?  And an obvious one at that?

But it’s really a truism, isn’t it?  As non-whites increase their share of the electorate, naturally a successful candidate will need to appeal to non-whites.  But, guess what?  Successful candidates do.  Bush won 46 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004.   McCain did far less well among Hispanics.  Then again, he did far less well among whites.

US News blogger Peter Roff speculates that Mitt Romney will run for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.

Such an announcement would likely be embraced immediately by the Republicans, who would like almost nothing more than to deny Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada his new, hard-won, 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. As a self-funding candidate who has already been elected once statewide, Romney has nearly 100 percent name ID. And, in an environment where President Obama seems to be dragging the Democrats down, he would be a serious threat to the Democratic hegemony in Massachusetts’s congressional delegation. Meaning Romney likely would win.

If he did, Romney would then have a platform to actually introduce legislation modeled on the proposals he put forward as a presidential candidate
in 2008 and planned to put forward in 2012. No guesswork. No empty rhetoric. Real ideas, on the Senate floor, that could be evaluated, debated, and perhaps even voted on.

From the Senate floor, Romney could show his fellow Republicans, and the country, just what kind of president he would be. How he would approach national problems. As an added political benefit, it would give him the opportunity to establish true conservative bona fides allowing him to finally overcome the suspicions many conservatives in the GOP’s primary electorate still harbor about him. Rather than tie him down, Romney could actually use the Senate seat to lock up the GOP nomination in 2012.

Two minor problems with this: Romney would have to get elected. And he’d have to instantly be an effective senator.

Romney was governor of Massachusetts, a very advantageous platform from which to run for president. Not only did it allow him to demonstrate decisive, executive leadership — as opposed to those pesky compromise votes that tend to embarrass senators running for president — but it allowed him to claim that he was a uniter, able to get things done as a Republican in a highly Democratic state. So, why did he give it up? Because he was unlikely to win re-election. Why would he suddenly be more popular in a state even less receptive to a Republican while wallowing in a sea of Kennedy emotion?

Were Romney to get elected despite this obstacle, he’d have about five minutes to start passing legislation for it to do him any good in a presidential campaign that will start in earnest next February. If it hasn’t started already. He’d have to do this as the Senate’s most junior member in a body where seniority is everything. And as a Republican in a body where the Democrats have 59 percent of the votes.

UPDATE: Alex Massie, Steve Benen, and Nate Silver all agree this is a really bad idea.  So does Steve M., who notes that Romney doesn’t even qualify for Massachusetts residency at the moment.

Implicit in all their arguments is a fundamental point I failed to make in the original post: The positions one has to take to get elected to statewide office in Massachusetts are diametrically opposed to those one has to take to win the Republican presidential nomination.

President Obama’s approval ratings are continuing to fall, especially among young Democrats and working class whites.

Ron Brownstein highlights a new Pew poll showing the trends since the election:

Pew found Obama’s numbers are weakest among groups that were skeptical of him last year, but appeared to be kicking the tires on him during the honeymoon stage of his presidency. Now those groups–particularly white men without a college education–are retreating rapidly amid the ideologically polarizing debates over health care, the stimulus and his administration’s overall trajectory.

But Pew’s new survey also records perceptible, if still generally modest, erosion among groups that were central to Obama’s coalition last year–including young people, college-educated white women and even partisan Democrats. That is more worrisome for Obama, especially amid signs that the bruising combat over his health care plan is inflaming the conservative base. If conservatives are energized at the same time that Obama’s core supporters are wavering, Democrats could face a withering differential in turnout during next year’s election, many party strategists fear.

[...]

This erosion among non-college whites could threaten Democrats in 2010, particularly across the Rustbelt states of the Midwest, if turnout among these voters remains strong. But over the long run, those voters are not central to Obama’s coalition, in part because they have been reliably Republican in presidential elections since the 1980s, and partly because they are steadily declining as a share of the electorate.

More important to Obama are college-educated white voters, the key to his dramatic and decisive gains last year in suburban counties from Fairfax, Virginia to Arapahoe, Colorado. On this front, the picture is somewhat brighter for him: he maintains majority support among college-educated white women (who gave him 52 percent of their vote last year, matching the Democratic high in recent decades) and his approval rating among college-educated white men still exceeds his (admittedly lackluster) vote with them last year. But with both groups, he is moving in the wrong direction: Obama’s approval rating among the upscale men dropped two points in the Pew survey from July to August, and his standing with the college-plus white women dropped a more ominous five percentage points.

Greg Sargent notes similar trends in the Washington Post/ABC News poll and says this is what Obama gets for reaching out to conservatives:

Much talk today has focused on Obama’s difficulties with independents. But the drop among Dems and liberals is also a key driving factor in the President’s skid, according to WaPo polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta, who graciously provided the additional data.

This suggests Obama’s conciliatory approach to the GOP, and his lack of clarity around the public option — both of which are presumably alienating Dems and liberals — could be key factors driving his dip.

But none of this should be surprising. Obama came to office with outsized expectations, owing to a combination of his enormous charisma, the sustained national malaise during most of Bush’s second term, and an adoring media. It would have been impossible for him to live up to the hype. Especially when he was inheriting two wars, a global financial crisis, and a health care system headed for fiscal meltdown.

Nor is the demographic breakdown at all surprising. Young Democrats naturally had the most unrealistic expectations of the Change! that was coming to Washington, in that they simply don’t have the experience with the American political system to know any better. And of course working class whites and hipster ObamaCons who voted for Obama because they were so tired of the Republicans were going to be disappointed with a president with an agenda fundamentally at odds with their political preferences.  Not to mention that we’ve been a 50-50 country for a while now; a bare majority approval rating is going to be the ceiling outside from brief periods of euphoria.

Brownstein is right that, if this trend sustains itself, it means a bad midterm cycle for Obama’s party.  But that was likely to be the case, anyway.  Not only is a letdown in the off-year election the historical norm but regression to the mean should be expected after two cycles where Republicans lost big in areas naturally friendly to their platform.

It’s way too early to project this trend to 2012.  Still, I don’t see much cause for Republican celebration or Democratic panic.  Barring miracles — or a truly horrendous GOP nominee — Obama wasn’t going to keep the ObamaCons for another cycle.  And, barring a Lyndon Johnson-style meltdown, the disillusioned young Democrats are going to vote for Obama again, although perhaps not as enthusiastically or in quite such high numbers.  Which means, barring something unusual happening, we’re likely to return to our recent pattern of close elections.

Newt Gingrich has weighed in with a plan for a Sarah Palin political comeback which Taegan Goddard summarizes as:

1. Write a book.
2. Land a regular commentator slot on television.
3. Consider getting a condominium in New York or Washington.
4. Write and master three types of speeches: to make money, to project her brand, to gain attention.
5. Create some sort of national project or center.
6. Plan on working really, really hard.

There’s an old saying about free advice being worth what you paid for it.  That’s doubly true, I suspect, if it’s a potential rival offering said advice.

Steps 1 and 2 would almost surely reinforce Palin’s existing handicap of being thought rather shallow on the important public policy issues of the day.  She’s not a professional writer and having to make the rounds defending what someone else ghost-wrote for her is what got her into trouble during the 2008 campaign.  And engaging in regular, off-the-cuff analysis is surely not her strong suit.

Step 3 would undermine her chief selling point as being Regular Folk.

She’s already mastered Step 4; it’s her main skill as a politician.  Raising money and, Lord knows, gaining attention are not things she’s had any difficulty with at all.  Her brand is another matter, I suppose, but she appears to be doubling down on securing the loyalty of the hard right.

Step 5 might actually be useful.  Gingrich suggests a “National Energy Project.”  The problem is that actually getting anything worthwhile done with such a thing would take years; starting it up and then running for the 2012 nomination (the race starts next Thursday, I believe, with pancakes in New Hampshire) would make her appear a dilettante.

To have gotten to where she is, she’s already done step 6. So, really, it’s a gratuitious insult disguised as “advice.”  Or maybe it’s not really disguised: “Many ex-politicians confuse being a celebrity with being a serious political player, Gingrich said. “She can be a personality for a long time,” he said. “But that is very different from becoming a national leader.”

Sarah Palin has announced that, not only will she not seek re-election as governor of Alaska in 2010 but that she is resigning her office later this month.   Andrew Hinkelman and Lori Tipton for KTUU:

Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office in a few weeks, she said during a news conference at her Wasilla home Friday morning. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the Governor’s Picnic at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks on Saturday, July 25, Palin said.

There was no immediate word as to why she will resign, though speculation has been rampant that the former vice presidential candidate is gearing up for a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

I’m not sure who her political brain trust is but the idea that resigning as governor — the only significant political office she’s had — after only two years will improve her chances of getting elected president is, to say the least, unconventional.

WaPo’s Paul Volpe reports, “Palin’s decision comes amid polling that showed her losing altitude from the stratospheric heights to which she ascended following her election in 2006 but remained a strong favorite to win reelection.”

He points to a Chris Cillizza piece from a month back arguing Palin would be wise not to seek reelection because Alaska is a long way from the key primary states and it’s not a great time to be governor right now, anyway, because of the economic climate. Fair enough.  For most serious presidential contenders, it may well be better to spend more time raising money, building an organization, and eating pancakes in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But Palin’s not an ordinary presidential aspirant in that she’s got essentially no experience.  True, that didn’t seem to stop Barack Obama.  But he’s sui generis and came out of the gates giving the impression he had at least thought deeply about the major national and international issues presidents would deal with.  Fairly or not, Palin lost that presumption almost immediately upon her debut on the national stage.  Without a governorship as a platform for demonstrating competence, I’m not sure how she rebrands herself.

UPDATE: Well, the combination of breaking news, Palin’s pop culture icon status, and a slow news day have made this one of the biggest political stories in some time.  As of 6 am, this post already has 50 comments and Memeorandum is going nuts.  See a screencap here; it’s too big to embed in a post.

Nor, half a day later, are we any closer to unraveling this mystery.

The near-universal consensus is that her resignation speech was simply godawful. Watch it if you haven’t already:

Ed Morrissey believes, as do I, that “it simply can’t be rationalized on the basis of what Palin said today.  It’s easily the most bizarre resignation I’ve seen, and just about senseless.”

A few lefty blogs are peddling thinly sourced rumors of an “iceberg scandal” involving pending federal indictment over alleged embezzlement involving a  sports complex in Wasilla.

Mark Halperin offers “10 Possible reasons for Palin’s decision,” all of which are necessarily speculative.

1. Her political standing has slipped enough that she could have lost a re-election bid if she tried to retain her current office.

2. Her political standing has slipped enough that even if she had run and won, she would have likely been bloodied in the race, maybe even in a primary.

Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968 after having lost a bid as California governor in 1962 and for president in 1960.  Mitt Romney was a serious contender for the 2008 GOP nomination despite deciding not to run for re-election because he would have lost.  Neither, however, resigned after only two years in their only significant office.

3. Even more ethics complaints (many frivolous) would have been filed against her.

So?

4. She’s got a book to write.

And, I guess, having people think you’re weird sells books.

5. She’s got a special needs baby to raise.

But she had a special needs baby to raise when she was seeking the vice presidency. And, for that matter, if that’s her rationale, why not say so?  People would be sympathetic.

6. It is logistically impossible to run for president as the sitting governor of Alaska — because of flight times. (Not hard: *impossible*)

Already noted by Cillizza and reasonable enough.  But Alaska hasn’t moved all that much in the last two years.

7. She couldn’t truly explore her money-making potential as an incumbent governor.

8. She couldn’t truly explore her media potential as an incumbent governor.

Both true.  Maybe she’s realized she’s a pretty good pop culture celebrity and she should just be the best pop culture celebrity she can be?  Sort of a middle-aged Britney Spears.

9. The legislature has turned so much against her that the job wasn’t much fun any more.

Wah.

10. If she wants to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2012, she needs to spend more time raising money, establishing her international and national expertise, and traveling the Lower 48. And she needs to start now.

I’d say she needed to start about twenty years ago.  But sure.

In fairness, though, Bill Kristol thinks it’s a good idea.  And he’s seldom wrong.  Oh, wait.

If Palin wants to run in 2012, why not do exactly what she announced today? It’s an enormous gamble – but it could be a shrewd one.

After all, she’s freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues – and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska. I suppose she’ll take a hit for leaving the governorship early – but how much of one? She’s probably accomplished most of what she was going to get done as governor, and is leaving a sympatico lieutenant governor in charge.

And haven’t conservatives been lamenting the lack of a national leader? Well, now she’ll try to be that. She may not succeed. Everything rests on her talents, and on her performance. She’ll be under intense and hostile scrutiny, and she’ll have to perform well.

That’s essentially a long form version of Halperin’s 10th reason.

In order to rebuild, Republicans need to identify the people who have something—good ideas, popularity, vision, and a good record. - Mark McKinnon and Jon Henke

Upon seeing the quote at InstaPundit, my initial thought was, “Duh.” Followed by, “Unfortunately, nobody comes to mind” (or words to that effect).

They proffer six candidates.  Three, I’ve never heard of: Rep. Tom McClintock of California, Delegate Chris Saxman of Virginia, and Sarah Steelman of Missouri. The last two have yet to get elected to statewide, much less national office. Two I’ve heard of but know very little about: Rob Portman of Ohio and Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana. The last is a potential superstar who had an embarrassing debut on the national stage: Governor Bobby Jindal.

I’m sure there are plenty of young Republicans out there who have what it takes to rebuild the party from within over the next few years.  Out-parties, especially those who have lost a couple of elections in a row, tend to find such people.  But what about a plausible contender for making Barack Obama a one-term president?

Let’s dismiss the first three out-of-hand for 2012.  Obama’s meteoric rise from the Illinois state senate to the White House in four years notwithstanding, these people don’t have the name recognition or organization.  (Obama had already become a household name by this point in 2005.)  Both Portman and Daniels have the resumes to make a credible case they could be president.  Daniels says he’s not interested in running for office again and, unless he changes his mind by next Tuesday, it’s too late for him.

Portman is well regarded by young GOP insider types and U.S. Representative, Trade Representative, and OMB Director provide a very interesting experience portfolio.  He’s running for the Senate and, if he wins, he could be intriguing, indeed.   True, governor is a better platform than senator.  But Obama was a senator and won, so it’s doable again.

Jindal is a genius, an amazingly competent executive, and has a personal story as compelling as Obama’s.  He’s got some baggage, notably the weird exorcism thing, but who doesn’t?  And he’s clearly toying with the idea of running.  He’s going to have to get much, much better at reading a teleprompter, though, if he’s going to have a shot.

Mitt Romney is busy selling off a few of many his mansions and plans to move to his family vacation home in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, Hotline reports.  He has also registered his PAC there.  This has some people guessing that Romney is contemplating another run for the presidency.

“No doubt in my mind that they are doing the necessary maintenance to keep their network in New Hampshire together,” noted veteran Granite State GOP operative Mike Dennehy, who was a senior adviser to McCain’s 2008 campaign.

Establishing residency in NH could raise expectations for Romney’s performance in the state’s 2012 primary, but the state is also flush with important contests in the upcoming 2010 midterm elections, where Romney could lend a hand. First and foremost for Republicans, NH will host a critical Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Judd Gregg (R). At this point in the cycle, Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes is the only announced candidate, and with recent trends in the state, the seat is a top target for Democratic pick up. What’s more, Romney’s Wolfeboro home is in the 1st Congressional District, represented by Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, who is likely to face a strong Republican challenge by Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta. In both races Romney’s help–and even his vote–could matter.

At the same time, a case could be made for Romney to establish residency in CA [he already has a mansion in San Diego] instead. Romney’s loss to McCain in the Golden State on Super Tuesday last year was the death knell for his candidacy, given the state’s large share of delegates. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is a strong GOP contender for the open gubernatorial contest to replace outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), while Democrats barrel toward a competitive primary. Whitman originally endorsed Romney and assisted him in his primary campaign before he ended his bid, and former Romney campaign staffers are flocking to Whitman’s effort. And former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, a top McCain surrogate, is looking seriously at a challenge to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

To the extent that the Republican nomination goes to the candidate whose “turn” it is, Romney is well positioned. Technically, Mike Huckabee finished slightly ahead of him in the 2008 delegate count, but only as a function of shamelessly campaigning for months after he was mathematically eliminated, whereas Romney had the good grace to bow out at CPAC once the writing was on the wall.

Romney’s relatively moderate but the political advantage of setting up shop in California would be negligible; no Republican is going to beat Obama there in 2012.  The power of New Hampshire in the nominating process, on the other hand, is as obvious as it is ridiculous.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin thinks Senator Mark Begich, who narrowly defeated incumbent Ted Stevens last November shortly after the latter was convicted on corruption charges, should step down and agree to a rematch now that the Justice Department has decided to drop the case against Stevens.

Palin’s call came after a reporter at the Fairbanks News Miner emailed her a copy of a statement by Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich calling for Begich to step down.

Asked for her response, Palin simply wrote back: “I absolutely agree.”

When the reporter wrote back to confirm that Palin meant she’d like to see Begich resign in order to hold a special election, the governor responded: “Yes.”

In an email to POLITICO, Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton confirmed the governor’s position. “She absolutely agrees that there should be a special election,” Stapleton wrote. “Stepping down to hold the special election would be the right thing to do.”

In the statement Palin was provided, Ruedrich said that “the only reason Mark Begich won the election in November is because a few thousand Alaskans thought that Sen. Ted Stevens was guilty of seven felonies.”  “A special election will allow Alaskans to have a real, non-biased, credible process where the most qualified person could win, without the manipulation of the Department of Justice,” he added.

It’s not just the voters who thought Stevens was guilty of seven felonies but an Alaska jury.  The Attorney General dropped the case against Stevens prior to sentencing because of prosecutorial misconduct, not because of evidence exonerating Stevens.

Beyond that, it’s not uncommon for narrow elections to be decided based on dubious knowledge on the part of the voters.  Candidates are often smeared with unfounded charges by their opponents and occasionally even charged with actual crimes for which they are subsequently exonerated.  Them’s unfortunately the breaks.  There are no do-overs.

Needless to say, I agree with Jon Henke that sticking up for Ted Stevens is not a plank I’d like to see the Republican Party run on.

Judging from a scan of memeorandum and my RSS feed, quite literally everyone writing about Bobby Jindal’s national coming out party, his Republican response to Obama’s non-State of the Union address, thought it was an epic fail.  Indeed, seemingly everyone came to the independent conclusion that his delivery was channeling moronic page Kenneth Parcell from “30 Rock.”

It’s great news for Tina Fey:  At least the cognoscenti are watching her show.

That ain’t good, however, if you’re hoping to establish yourself as a frontrunner for president in 2012.

What’s particularly interesting going through the RSS feed is that it confirms something I wrote earlier about reporting on “Remarks as Prepared for Delivery.” Namely, the reactions to the text of Jindal’s remarks were quite favorable, at least from the Republicans I read.  The reactions to the speech itself were universally awful especially from the Republicans I read.

The Next Right’s Mathew Gagnon gives the most detailed breakdown of why the speech was awful.  It defies excerpting, so follow the link.

Alex Massie gives the best meta analysis of the lot:

I don’t know why Bobby Jindal, the Republican party’s Great Brown Hope, agreed to give the GOP response to Obama’s speech last night. Supposedly a privilege, this more often turns out to be a fools errand. Indeed, the only successful opposition response I can recall in recent years was given by Senator Jim Webb. Generally, however, the poor sap offered the chance to go up against the President is on a hiding to nothing: the man in charge has the full majesty of his office behind him; the opposition spokesman sits in a wee room on their own waiting for their chance to give a speech no-one is very interested in anyway…

Quite.  Indeed, I’ve always thought the idea of an opposition response speech was idiotic.

It should be noted, however, that blowing this speech — assuming that the pundits’ views and public perception line up — isn’t the end of the road for Jindal.   Bill Clinton’s big public debut, the 1988 keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, was widely considered a bore and he came back nicely.

I’ve noticed around the blogosphere and on certain cable television networks that polling has already begun for the 2012 Republican nomination. I only have one thing to say about that:

Stop it.

For the love of whatever gods may be, just stop.

In a just and decent world, commissioning a poll for the next Presidential cycle prior to inauguration day would result in being hanged by the neck until dead dead dead.

And for those of you who are following these polls, let me just say: gather all of your friends and family together for an intervention. Turn off the TV. Put down your PDA phone. Close your laptop. Read a book. Go see a movie. Maybe go camping or something. Trust me, the election will still be there in a couple of years. And there will be plenty of news and commentary about polls, campaign setbacks, the whole nine yards. Why, by the time the fall of 2010 or so I promise everybody will be talking about the 2012 presidential race. You’ll get your fix. Don’t worry.

But for right now, at least for the next few months, let’s not talk about it, okay?

A long profile in today’s WaPo extolling Bobby Jindal as the Republican Party’s best hope to regain the White House may constitute the unofficial start of Campaign 2012.  It’s about time.

Last weekend, 18 days after Barack Obama decisively defeated their candidate for president, a mostly Republican crowd of self-described conservatives received their first introduction to someone many prominent members of the GOP think could be the party’s own version of Obama.

Like the president-elect, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is young (37), accomplished (a Rhodes scholar) and, as the son of Indian immigrants, someone familiar with breaking racial and cultural barriers. He came to Iowa to deliver a pair of speeches, and his mere presence ignited talk that the 2012 presidential campaign has begun here, if coyly. Already, a fierce fight is looming between him and other Republicans — former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who arrived in Iowa a couple of days before him, and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is said to be coming at some point — for the hearts of social conservatives.

When one reaches the point of being seriously considered for the presidency of the United States, it’s long past time for academic credentials to have moved to the bottom of the resume. Jindal is a sitting governor who ran his state’s health and university systems and served in Congress; his successful undergraduate career is now a footnote.

Jindal insists he is ignoring all the speculation. In Cedar Rapids, at a breakfast event devoted to addressing this beleaguered city’s efforts to rebound from its disastrous flood last summer, he avoided any reference to 2012, staying focused on explaining Louisiana’s methods for coping with hurricane floods in emergencies on his watch.

It has been said that no politician travels to Iowa unless they’re running for president. Certainly, not from Louisiana.

No less an aspiring kingmaker than Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist of McCain’s failed presidential bid, sees Jindal as the Republican Party’s destiny. “The question is not whether he’ll be president, but when he’ll be president, because he will be elected someday.” The anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist believes, too, that Jindal is a certainty to occupy the White House, and conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh has described him as “the next Ronald Reagan.”

Jindal’s rise has indeed been meteoric and I do believe the next Republican president will be a youngish governor rather than a geriatric senator. But timing is everything. The best nominee might not be able to beat Obama in 2012 if things are looking up — and anyone might be able to knock him off if the economy is still in a slump.

Sarah Palin is a big star now.

In this Nov. 4, 2008 file photo, Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, acknowledges the crowd during an election night rally in Phoenix. Oprah wants her, and so do Letterman and Leno. Fresh from her political defeat, Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate astonishing for any first-term governor, let alone a Hollywood star. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

Oprah wants her, and so do Letterman and Leno. Fresh from her political defeat, Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate that would be astonishing for most Hollywood stars, let alone a first-term governor.

The failed Republican vice presidential candidate crunched state budget numbers this week in her 17th-floor office as tumbling oil prices hit Alaska’s revenues. Meanwhile, her staff fielded television requests seeking the 44-year-old Palin for late-night banter and Sunday morning Washington policy. Agents, including those from the William Morris Agency, have come knocking. There’s even been an offer to host a TV show.

“Tomorrow, Governor Palin could do an interview with any news media on the planet,” said her spokesman, Bill McAllister. “Tomorrow, she could probably sign any one of a dozen book deals. She could start talking to people about a documentary or a movie on her life. That’s the level we are at here.” “Barbara Walters called me. George Stephanopoulos called me,” McAllister said. “I’ve had multiple conversations with producers for Oprah, Letterman, Leno and ‘The Daily Show.’”

[...]

Palin has sent unmistakable signals she is open to running for president in 2012, but to advance her political ambitions she must stay in the public eye in the lower 48 states. As with any celebrity, there is the risk of overexposure. At the same time, she’ll be under pressure to attend to governing her home state, which is thousands of miles from the rest of the nation.

“She has to deal with the perception that she bobbled her debut,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist John Pitney. “She needs to stay home for a while. If she wants a future in national politics, her No. 1 job is doing a good job as governor.”

I’m inclined to agree. She’s already got name recognition in spades; the problem is the perception that she’s not ready for prime time. Of course, it’s going to be mighty hard to “do a good job” at this point, given that the job has become tremendously harder now that oil is back to $50 a barrel.