WASHINGTON — If John McCain fails in his bid to win the White House, his running mate Sarah Palin could emerge as a GOP front-runner for 2012.

“Sarah Palin might not be popular in New York or Washington, but she’s popular everywhere else with the base of the party,” said GOP strategist Greg Mueller.

Veteran Congress watcher Norman Ornstein said Palin’s star could rise within the GOP even if she returned to Alaska to resume her duties as governor.

”Give her three years to bone up on the issues with a steady stream of experts trekking up to Alaska, and three years of giving speeches all over the country and she might well emerge” as the frontrunner, said Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Palin would face plenty of competition. Expect to see the return of familiar figures such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who both ran for the nomination this year.

Other possibilities include Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.

Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio said that if McCain loses this year, the 2012 GOP nominee would emerge after an intense period of soul-searching within a party seeking to agree on its future course and identify its new leaders.

That introspection could produce fireworks if the November elections not only push the party out of the White House for the first time in eight years but also repeat the thrashing that in 2006 knocked Republicans from the majority in the House and Senate, Fabrizio said.

“That would ignite what has been brewing for several years, basically a war between the three major factions in the party: those focused on economic issues, those focused on foreign policy issues and those focused on moral issues,” he said.

Georgetown University government professor Stephen Wayne said Huckabee’s prospects will be determined by how the party sorts out its priorities.

“He could be strong if there is an emphasis on social issues,” Wayne said.

If the current financial crisis deepens, Romney, a former business executive, would benefit from an environment that calls for skillful economic and fiscal management.

Meanwhile, Jindal and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty could offer their credentials as staunch conservatives on both fiscal and social issues.

Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants, could help the party appeal to immigrants, whose numbers continue to surge. Pawlenty would help nail down a state that tends to turn blue in presidential races.

Barbour, who as head of the Republican National Committee in 1994 was an architect of the stunning Republican success in that year’s elections, brings a reputation for managerial competence that he burnished in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated much of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.

Mueller acknowledges Barbour’s previous career as a powerful lobbyist would make him vulnerable to attacks as a Washington insider.

”But his position on the issues will be more important“ to most Republicans, he said.

”I think you’ll see a demand by the base of the party that we start to hold firm to our conservative principles, because there’s a strong feeling that we went astray“ in recent years, Mueller said.

Source >  Freep.com   | oct 28

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