(Brendan McDermid and Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Chris Cilizza:
While much of the political world is past the “will she or won’t she” debate about Palin and the 2012 race, there’s one candidate who should be rooting hard for the 2008 vice presidential nominee to run.
And his name is Mitt Romney.
Cilizza's argument? That polling shows Mitt Romney getting slaughtered by tea party Republicans, and holding his own with everyone else. Therefore:
Those numbers make clear what Romney needs to be the nominee: a) fracture Perry’s tea party coalition and b) coalesce the non-tea party element of the GOP (aka the establishment) more strongly behind his candidacy.
Palin can, theoretically, help him do both.
While Palin’s support has eroded considerably within the GOP, she remains a major figure among tea party loyalists — and has courted the group assiduously (or, as assiduously as she courts any group).
With Palin in the race, there would be three “big” figures — Palin, Perry and Bachmann— all competing for tea party voters.
Back in January, I argued that this sort of divide-and-conquer could represent Mitt Romney's clearest path to the nomination, but now I'm not so sure. As I wrote then, one problem with this strategy is:
Primary voters and caucus goers tend to be very sophisticated; if Romney's divide-and-conquer strategy were to show signs of working, it is likely that a single tea party favorite would emerge to thwart his plans.
But another problem with the strategy is that so many Republicans support the tea party crowd that even if the tea party crowd were divided, Romney could still lose. For example, both CNN and PPP show Perry leading by double-digits even if Sarah Palin runs. In other words, divide-and-conquer might not be enough.
At this point, what Romney needs is to figure out how to destroy Rick Perry. He won't want to get his fingerprints on it, but that's what tools like Karl Rove are for. If he can manage to engineer Perry's destruction, then he'll need to take down Michele Bachmann, and if Sarah Palin runs, he'll need to go after her too. It would would make for a nasty Republican primary, but it's hard to see how Mitt Romney wins it on his merits alone.