There have, however, been a couple of articles by Alex Massie looking ahead to it, in The Spectator this week:
The Second Coming of Sarah Palin
and as a follow up to that article,Sarah Palin is Mitt Romney's Useful Idiot
Quote: The danger for the GOP, however, is that Palin and Palinism might hijack the party's primary season in 2012, leaving the eventual nominee crippled before the general election even begins. Palin is a wrecker, not a uniter.
While, sure, one ought not to rule out the possibility that some miraculous turnaround might happen, the idea that Palin is the answer is baffling. There are plenty of people who are populists in their hearts but, when push comes to shove and the moment arrives when they actually cast their ballot, they tend to vote for pragmatists, even boring ones, rather than glamorous populists.
which discusses Daniel Larison's article for The American Conservative on "Palin’s Extremely Long Shot At The Nomination"
http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/5 ... diot.thtml
Quote: this is one scenario in which Palin could actually help, not hurt, the Republican party: she would make the eventual nominee look much more respectable than might be the case if he has to spend the primary season wrestling for the Palin constituency. In other words, by providing something to run against, she helps the party become the kind of sensible, pragmatic, problem-focused, grown-up organisation that might actually be worth voting for...