[Guest post by Noam Scheiber:]
Well, as long as we're highlighting nuggets from the recent Robert Draper profile of Palin, here's my nominee for most telling:
“I am,” Sarah Palin told me the next day when I asked her if she was already weighing a run for president. “I’m engaged in the internal deliberations candidly, and having that discussion with my family, because my family is the most important consideration here.” Palin went on to say that there weren’t meaningful differences in policy among the field of G.O.P. hopefuls “but that in fact there’s more to the presidency than that” and that her decision would involve evaluating whether she could bring unique qualities to the table [emphasis added].
Wait, what? Isn't Palin supposed to be the Tea Party candidate in the GOP field? As such, aren't there potentially enormous policy differences between her and some of her rivals? For example, from what I gather, she's very much against Obama's signature health care law, whereas Mitt Romney championed a close relative of the law when he was governor of Massachusetts. Likewise, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, another presidential hopeful, has mused about the utility of a value-added tax; Palin is almost certainly against that. As the Tea Party standard bearer, Palin would presumably want to rein in the Fed's cherished independence. I'm guessing more establishment Republicans like Romney and Daniels would be reluctant to climb on board that train. Etc., etc.
Obviously, the issue here isn't a lack of policy differences. The issue is that Palin doesn't feel comfortable elaborating on them--even though most would play to her advantage in the GOP primaries--because she doesn't feel remotely comfortable talking policy of any kind. And, if I'm reading her correctly, she has no plans to get more comfortable talking policy. In case you needed more evidence that Palin is laughably unfit to be president, this would seem to be it.