With Rick Perry in . . .

. . . let me go on record now, saying I don't think Sarah Palin will get into the race.

It's my understanding that she likes and respects Perry and I think she'll campaign for him, as opposed to Michele Bachmann, only because Sarah is of the mind that governors make better presidents. Which I happen to agree with. As does history, for what that's worth.

Should Perry tab Bachmann as his running mate if he becomes the eventual nominee? There's a real deja vu aspect to a ticket like that, though Perry would be a much stronger candidate than McCain was. The relentless personal attacks on Bachmann have grown thin, and I don't think with the economy in the toilet, that voters are going to accept a nasty, personal attack campaign by the President when both Perry and Bachmann have pretty solid legislative credentials to throw back at detractors.

But leaks from the President's campaign staffers have confirmed what political pundits on both sides of the aisle have said -- that is exactly the type of campaign the Dems are planning to run. Bachmann is an easy target, but even groups like NOW are getting tired of the sexist stereotypes and bashing of women in politics. So to continue to go after her might be counterproductive.

But geographically, the combo makes sense -- Perry from the south and Bachmann from the north. That's basic politics 101. And a woman VP? It would be a good ground breaker and as opposed to Obama in the last presidential election, Bachmann actually has some legislative and executive experience. This time, voting to break a stereotype might not be a bad thing.

And if Palin throws her considerable political might behind them, you'll have a pretty potent force running for president: Perry's charismatic and a good campaigner and Bachmann won't have any problem in the traditional VP role -- that of attack dog. And again, unlike last election, the presidential candidate's staff won't be sabotaging the VP candidate or holding her back to dull her shine. That would make a huge difference in the campaign.

Or not. What do I know?

Well, for the record, I accurately predicted McCain's selection of Palin as his running mate long before any of the professional pundits. So I've got that going for me.

Which is nice :-)

Update:
For what it's worth, Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll today. And in my humble opinion, it means nothing. The poll is a cutesy gimmick where candidates bus in supporters, stuff them full of free food and hope they'll vote for them. That's why nutcase Ron Paul always does well there, then flames out in the general voting -- he's got a fervent but tiny fan base. They stuff inconsequential ballot boxes, hack online polls and such, but when it's one person - one vote, they come up woefully short.
Kudos to Michele, but the race doesn't start until the votes count for real.

Update 2:
T-Paw dropped out Sunday morning. Personally, I think this is a bit too early to throw in the towel. As mentioned above, you have to discount Ron Paul's finish as an outlier, so realistically Pawlenty finished 2nd in the poll. But I suppose appearance is everything and folks are saying after working hard for a year to win the poll, to not win or garner more votes, would make it hard for him to continue fund raising. Pity, he's a nice guy, but let's face it -- nice guys rarely finish first. I can can testify to that first hand.