WILL SARAH PALIN RUN FOR PRESIDENT?

By NBF News

Speculation about whether Mrs Palin will run for president is rife

Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin releases her second book, America By Heart, on Tuesday. In it, she discusses her values, her faith and her identity as an American. But she doesn't mention the one thing America really wants to know: will she run for president?

Washington DC's political pundits have been debating, analysing and even scoffing at the idea of a Palin presidency since the moment she burst onto the national stage in 2008.

In recent weeks, Mrs Palin has given some of the strongest indications yet that she will run.

She told Robert Draper in the New York Times Magazine that she was going through the decision-making process right now, consulting her husband Todd and their children about what a presidential campaign would mean for them.

Draper told the BBC he believes she genuinely has not yet made up her mind, but he noted that people who publicly announce they are mulling a run, rarely end up deciding against it.

He doubts she can resist the allure of a presidential campaign.

“She's a very competitive person,” Draper said. “It would be anathema to her to be sitting on the sidelines in 2012, listening to all these other guys invoking Ronald Reagan, talking about their vision for America and criticising Obama, and not be a part of it.”

Come February 2012, if she is not in the race, Mrs Palin will become just another critic, sniping from her living room – and it's clear that she's not ready for her star to be eclipsed by the likes of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney or Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

But, if she does run, could Sarah Palin win the Republican nomination?