Riding on Sarah Palin's book tour

Dan Balz:

Sarah Palin is embarking on what is likely to be the most commercially successful book tour by a politician since Barack Obama launched "The Audacity of Hope" three years ago. Obama's book tour spawned a presidential campaign. Will Palin's do the same?

Her ultimate ambitions remain a mystery. The opening stage of the tour for her book "Going Rogue" has been marked by the same qualities that have defined the public reaction to her since that morning in Ohio when she was announced as John McCain's choice for vice president: curiosity and controversy.

Give Palin credit: She has a gift for attracting attention. Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), who twice unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination, said of her recently that she has "the quality that every politician wants to have: She's interesting. Most politicians would swap about anything for that quality."

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Palin will travel from one book signing to another aboard a bus that will make the tour appear very much like an extension of her campaign for vice president, or the beginning of a new campaign. She will be riding what one Republican calls a backlash among many conservatives against the treatment she has received from the media and much of the political establishment.

The book tour will provide the subtext for a bigger discussion of what kind of political future Palin may have -- or, more important, may want to have. Is she merely a political personality, or is there something that could be called "Palinism," defining a political philosophy that could help her party win elections and turn her into a viable national candidate?

There is no conclusive evidence that Palin intends to use the book tour to define more clearly her political philosophy or to fill out her profile. The book appears to be partly an effort to settle scores, and for now she may be as interested in making money for her and her family. The future can wait.

But the eventual answer to the question of what kind of political future she may have rests with how Palin performs. As former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich put it a few weeks ago: "If she grows, she'll be the Republican nominee. More than anybody else in the party, her future is in her hands."

Gingrich said he expects an "amazing" book tour for the former Alaska governor, with enthusiastic audiences at her signings and plenty of media coverage. "If in the process she begins to develop a sophisticated message and she begins to do interviews where people say, you know, 'She was maligned and there's a lot more there than I thought,' she'll be very formidable -- and she'll be the front-runner by February or March."

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A veteran of many Republican presidential campaigns sees in the huge crowds that turned out for Palin last year the first stirrings of what has become the Tea Party protests. "She taps into that underlining stream of anger that folks feel so deeply, as Newt did in 1994," this GOP strategist said. "And like Newt, she is a revolutionary figure to that crowd."

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I think she does fit neatly with the Tea Party movement and she gets the same kind of anger from Democrats as that movement. They hate her as much as they hate the Tea Party and the Town Hall protesters, because she and they stand between them and their objectives. Do not doubt that Democrats hate her as much as they hated George Bush. To be a really successful candidate she has to find a way to feed off that hate and at the same time inspire a movement that is looking for leadership.

Those who claim she needs to "grow" are ignoring some pretty solid positions on energy and the environment as well as national security. On the hot button issues that have motivated the Tea Party movement she is well ahead of the rest of the Republican party.