Much love to Sarah Palin for bringing an increase of web traffic my way.  Ever since she made the announcement that she was resigning as governor of Alaska, my web traffic has been up.  Most of it is to my post How Sarah Palin Can Win the 2012 Presidential Election from December.

In that post, I pointed out 6 things she could do to help her win in 2012.  Today if I were to re-write that post, I could do it in two words:  she can’t.

Sarah Palin can’t win the 2012 election. It’s impossible.  She was inexperienced before, and now she’s resigned the only job that would give her experience she needs.  The media is all over her, and no matter her reasons for resigning, the resignation makes her look like she’s running to hide because she can’t take the pressure.

So what should she do?

Palin needs to rally the Republican base around candidates who can actually win an election. She needs to find the Congressional districts where a Republican (preferably a non-RINO one) has a chance at taking a seat from a Democrat.  She can show up, throw some parties, and get the Republicans elected.  2010 has a lot of opportunities for Republicans to pick up some seats, and Palin will draw crowds and attention.

So why would she do this?  Why not run for office?

Primarily, this is what the Republican Party needs from her.  Palin can do more to help the Party by helping get Republicans elected (or re-elected) than she can by running a (losing) Presidential campaign.

Plus, when the time comes that Americans wake up and sees that Obama’s massive expansion of government has done more to hurt our economy than it ever did to help it, and they elect a Republican, Sarah Palin would likely be rewarded with a cabinet position in the new administration.

I noticed something this past year.  You probably noticed it, too.  After Sarah Palin was announced as the VP candidate on the Republican ticket, the media went after her.  They didn’t just point out her lack of qualifications; they got viciously personal with it.

Why?  They’re scared.  She connects with people.  She’s pro-life.  She’s attractive.  She’s got a certain charm about her.  And that scares them.  She could be a real threat – if she were qualified.  Fortunately for the Democrats, she wasn’t even close to being qualified this year.  If Palin wants to be a threat on the Republican ticket in 2012, she’s got a lot of work to do.  Here are a few items that top my list:

Learn to Interview.
That Katie Couric interview is just painful to watch.  That’s the one that we all think of when we think of Palin’s shortcomings in interviews, but that was just one interview.  A lot of interviews with Palin showed her obviously stumped on questions, stumbling her way through an answer.  She’s got to be able to think on her feet, and a big part of that is to know what she’s talking about.

Think Globally.
Sarah Palin has to spend the next four years studying every political leader of every foreign country.  She has to know exactly what’s going on in those countries, how it affects the United States, and she needs to have a plan for how she would interact with each of those leaders.  There can be no excuses here.  She has to know what’s going on and be able to convince Americans that she’s got a viable foreign policy plan.

Get Executive Experience.
Palin will get some executive experience in the rest of her term as Governor of Alaska, but she needs to be actively thinking about how each situation, meeting, and decision can better prepare her for the office of the President.  Applying her experience has to be at the forefront of her mind every day if she hopes to be in the Republican primary election as anything more than a token female.

Go Conservative.
America is on the verge of some very tough years.  Recent financial misbehavior by our federal government (led in part by the “conservative” Republican White House) has guaranteed us that this will get worse before it gets better.  Governor Palin is the pretty new face for the Republican Party, with strong support in the party’s base, but she needs to lead the GOP back to true conservatism.  Tax less.  Spend less.  Protect personal liberties.  She needs to lead the way with Alaska through the rest of her term by setting an example on true conservatism.  If the Party keeps drifting towards the center, no Republican will have a chance of winning in 2012.

Watch Obama.
Governor Palin needs to know everything Barack Obama does.  Every decision, every meeting, every speech.  She needs to keep record of each mistake, all broken promises, and every bad thing that happens on Obama’s watch.  More importantly, she needs to know what decision he should have made, why he should have made it, and what different outcome the correct decision would have brought.  Pointing out his failures will not work; Palin must have strong, specific examples about bad Obama policy in order to convince Republicans (and the more conservative Obama fans) that she’s ready and able to lead.

Something Else?
Did I miss something?  What else does she need to do to prepare herself for a run in 2012?  Does she have a chance, even if she does these 5 things?

Tonight’s debate has convinced me of two things:

1. John McCain wants me to think he’s a conservative.
2. Barack Obama is a Socialist.

McCain wants me to get on board with his spending cuts.  I favor spending cuts, but when John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for President, he promised to veto any pork barrel bills that come across his desk.  He said I would “know their names.”  McCain just voted in favor of the $700 bailout rescue bill.  How is that fiscal conservatism?  How does he expect me to believe that he’ll veto bogus spending bills when, while in the heat of an election race, he voted in favor of a big pork barrel bill?

Barack Obama wants redistribute wealth.  He wants to get the federal government involved with providing my family’s health care.  He wants me to believe that a free market won’t work and that Americans need the government to come in and rescue us from the big, bad companies.  Everything he has said tonight has to do with bigger government, more control, and more regulations.

What really confuses me is they go back and forth bickering over relatively small dollar amounts.  Several million dollars here, a billion or so over there, another couple hundred million somewhere else.  Isn’t there still a national debt of 10 trillion dollars?

Where is a candidate that will propose some real changes in the way government works?  Where is a candidate that wants to get serious about fixing some problems?  Neither of these men will be the President that America truly needs.  No matter who wins this election, we all lose.