Sarah Palin’s next move

Gov. Sarah Palin arrived home in Alaska to chants of "2012! 2012!" said Wayne Slater and Gromer Jeffers Jr. in The Dallas Morning News. Palin says it's too early to talk about whether she might make a bid for the Republican presidential nomination four years from now, but with no clear frontrunner, "Palin will, at least for a time, become the focal point of discussion for the GOP's future."

It might not take four years for Palin to get to Washington, said Amanda Carpenter in Townhall. She could challenge Lisa Murkowski for her Senate seat in 2010. Or, if the final count reveals that corruption-tainted Republican Ted Stevens has won his reelection bid but he "does the right thing and resigns," the state's voters would gladly give her the job.

Running for another office is just one way for Palin to stay on the national stage, said Nathan Thornburgh in Time online. "Will she join the big-money speaker's circuit? Become, as Tina Fey joked, the 'white Oprah'"? But Palin first needs to do some tough work in her current job as falling oil prices create a budget crisis for Alaska. "If her popularity at home suffers, so does her national profile."

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