Palin has miles to go before she is ready. You all are right about that. As RES commented, she doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s no reason to keep the bar low just because weak candidates have conditioned us to lower expectations. As I commented last night Palin will have to work harder than any of the other candidates if she runs.

But I am certainly amongst those whose opinion of Sarah Palin boils down to: not enough data but I like what I’ve heard. I understand and approve her resignation from Alaska’s governorship where the incoming fire was imposing too much collateral damage; I appreciate that her reflexes appear right but not far right. I am not confident of her ability to select staff, probably the single most important task undertaken by a President, as the aphorism “personnel is policy” reminds; OTOH I have no basis for doubting her ability in that regard is inferior to any other potential candidates and cannot be worse than Barack Obama’s judgment.

Her book is not and should not have been a policy collection. It was packaged as autobiography, a reintroduction to the person of Sarah Palin. It is too early to delineate policies and a book is the wrong venue for such delineation. The public doesn’t want to read such (next time you’re in the checkout line at WalMart or your grocery eyeball the magazine covers; the Beloved Spouse and I tallied seven (7!) cover stories focusing on Jen, Brad and Angelina, zero (0!) on health care reform, the intricacies of the tax code or the Islamofascist threat. A policy book would not reach the audience she needs to catch and would enable her foes to cherry-pick proposals and defeat her in detail. Policy-wonks are rarely leaders for good reason. As Reagan demonstrated, a political leader’s job is to sketch a vision, define objectives, pick the people to achieve those goals and dump those who are not pulling their weight. A long way of getting to the point: perhaps the best option for Palin is to spend the next couple of years at Heritage or The American Enterprise Institute or even Cato, giving speeches (which can be put on DVD and disbursed to potential supporters) and learning to size up the wonks she would need to staff a Palin administration. That (and making appearances in support of 2010 candidates) would occupy her productively and put her in position to run for President in her own time.

I didn’t think you were afraid of her – just people like Frum, David Brooks and (ugh) Andrew Sullivan.

I want her to talk a lot about liberty the next year. I want her to talk a lot about free markets and private property. I want to know that she understands the concepts embodied in the Federalist, the Declaration, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, Reagan’s speech at Moscow University, etc., etc. Bush never did that and we embraced him anyway instead of seeking out a better more conservative candidate. I love GWB and voted for him 4 times, but I don’t want to vote for compassionate conservatism redux just because — he helped start this economic ball rolling. She might be an American Maggie Thatcher, but I want to hear it and see it and so far she hasn’t shown it — strength yes — but not the philosophical heft these times call for. I hope she can. I know a lot of folks who went to non-Ivy League