I Did Say She’s Running, Didn’t I?

Tuesday we heard about her biopic premiering in Iowa, of all places, and this morning, we heard on CBS that:

Scott Conroy, a reporter at RealClearPolitics.com and co-author of "Sarah from Alaska," got a sneak peek at the documentary and said on "The Early Show" Thursday he's heard from "several reliable sources" that, over the next couple of days, another "major indicator" is going to surface that she's ready to run in 2012.

And later today, we found out what he was most likely talking about.

She’s going on a bus tour of United States historical sites, starting along the eastern seaboard.

Surprisingly, there’s still no change in her status with Fox News:

“We are not changing Sarah Palin’s status,” said Bill Shine, the executive vice president of programming at Fox News, in a statement provided to The Daily Caller.

Of course, they never got rid of former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) either. I guess the difference is that neither Huck nor former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) have launched “exploratory committees”. And I don’t think Palin will. She’ll just enter the race when she’s ready. And she will. I no longer have any doubts about that.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air agrees with me and thinks the question of “will she” has been answered:

It seems pretty clear that Palin wants to raise her national profile, and she wants to do so simultaneously in key early-primary states and in the media centers of Atlantic seaboard.  One doesn’t do that in a presidential primary season without having a specific goal in mind.  If Palin was interested in growing the grassroots for down-ticket Republicans in Congressional races, summer 2011 would be too early to help in that way.

So let’s consider the when of the candidacy.  National Journal reports that the formal entry could come as late as October, when Utah requires candidates to register, and Palin’s reach and name recognition means that she can wait longer to jump into the race.  I’d still expect it sooner rather than later, because Palin will want to use the momentum from the bus tour and the documentary to maximize the impact of her announcement.  She could go as long as Labor Day if the film does boffo box office, but given the usual success of political films, I’d look for something sooner — perhaps as soon as Independence Day.

Independence Day sounds like a good idea on the surface, but that’s the weekend she resigned from the Governorship of Alaska, also. I’m not sure she wants to bring attention to that while she’s announcing, so I’d expect sooner than that.

The bus tour starts this weekend joining Rolling Thunder, the motorcycle rally in D.C. honoring POW/MIA’s.

In perfect timing, Gallup, released a poll today showing her and former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) leading the GOP pack.

Mitt Romney (17%) and Sarah Palin (15%) now lead a smaller field of potential Republican presidential candidates in rank-and-file Republicans‘ preferences for the party’s 2012 nominee.

That’s fine by me. I will walk barefoot over hot coals to prevent Romney from getting the nomination. I’ll crawl naked over those same coals to keep him out of the White House. I do believe that he will be worse for the country than President Barack Obama (D-USA). Perhaps someday I’ll modify my opinion on that, but don’t hold out hope.

And, other news is lining up that’s helping out Mrs. Palin. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN-06) has hit a rough patch. She had a failed money bomb yesterday, and skipped an Iowa GOP dinner today, where she was scheduled to speak. Her Presidential aspirations may be fading. I like Bachmann, but she’s a firebrand, and I think the House suits her right now. I don’t like the idea of her in the White House. I’ll vote for her, if she’s the nominee, but I don’t think I’d be too happy about it. I’ve always thought legislators make poor Presidential material, and the last 2 1/2 years certainly haven’t changed my mind.

After a dull winter and spring, it looks like the summer is going to be an entertaining one for conservative political junkies. The GOP race is finally heating up.