Sarah Palin was "obsessed with running for President." Gee, I wonder what happened?

Courtesy of Business Insider:


Palin was "obsessed" with running and convinced she could win, according to one of Palin's closest advisors, who added that he was amazed by the "intensity and detail that she knew about the candidates, all the process, all the debates." 

She even insisted on watching all of the debates and analyzing the candidates afterwards, he said. But Palin's White House ambitions appeared to be driven, at least in part, by a desire to protect her celebrity and guard her turf. 

But when her Merry Prankster road trip fell flat over the summer, Palin's presidential hopes deflated quickly.

I have long felt, and repeated often, that Sarah Palin never had any REAL desire to win the presidency.

However, I was never exactly sure how far she wanted to milk the "idea" of launching a campaign. In other words, I was never sure if she would back out before she actually had to declare, declare and then drop out before the first debate, or try to stick it out for a couple of initial debates, and then use her family as an excuse to get out and go back on the speaking circuit, and then possibly have a book ghostwritten for her about her experiences.

We all know what ended up actually taken place, which was that she simply never even started a serious campaign, but with this information I am now thinking THAT might not have been the original plan.

In fact, if this tidbit of information is correct, than Palin might have really been serious about launching campaign with an open ended plan for dropping out when things got too hot.

What changed? What made her quite abruptly decide definitively that she was not going to continue to drag her political prick tease out any longer?

I DON'T think it was that bizarre bus trip. Personally I think it was "The Rogue," Joe McGinniss's book that changed her mind.

During an interview Joe was asked if HE thought that his book had any impact on Palin's decision not to run. Joe said that he did (As you may remember Palin declared she would not run on October 5, right in the middle of Joe's book tour.), and believed that she had been shocked with what he had discovered and was afraid that during a campaign journalists might dig up even more.

At first I thought that indicated a little hubris on the part of McGinniss, but I have to say that he might very well have been absolutely accurate.

So, though many great journalists, authors, and bloggers, have all had a part in bringing the truth out about Sister Sarah, perhaps it really was the work of Joe McGinniss that ultimately drove the stake through the heart of her political ambitions.

And yes, I do very much think it had everything to do with the fact that he brought "babygate" out onto the national stage, in away that it  had really never been exposed before.