Will People Remember Palin?

Will people remember Sarah Palin in 2012?

The GOPVP candidate and Alaska governor is positioned to make a run for president then, or so goes the rumor, but a brief CNN story this morning asked people who was John Kerry's vice presidential running mate in 2004.

Three people they asked, three people whiffed it.



Now I know how TV works -- more may have gotten it right but didn't make it past the editing booth. TV is more about compelling video than actual news. But let's give CNN the benefit of the doubt and look at this incredibly minuscule survey of three people as somehow educational and informative (stay with me, I know it's a stretch, but stay with me). Edwards was the running mate, obviously, and he even hit the news again recently when an affair became public knowledge. So you'd think he would be memorable, what with that perfect hair and screwing around on his wife and all that.

So again I wonder, will people remember Palin?

My answer: Yep, you betcha!

She's no John Edwards. She'll remain a media darling, she still has public office, and although there will be a stretch there where she kinda disappears from the radar she will re-emerge and play a role in the 2012 campaign. But I don't see her as the nominee. Political parties tend to move on, and there are a few good candidates waiting for their chance for the GOP, like the governor from Louisiana.

My interest here, obviously, is on what people know. So that small, insignificant, completely unscientific poll this morning on TV tells me something -- that people quickly forget. Palin will have to fight that, maybe by being Alaska's U.S. senator, maybe by doing something radical in Alaska, maybe by starting a talk show or appearing in a film. But we forget those VP types quickly, even the quirky ones, so to stay in the public mind she'll have to work at it.

Can she do it? You betcha.