Forget the Crib Notes, It’s Palin’s Unsavvy That Really Worries Republicans

Palin 2012 buzz is again in the air, this time after her punchy and oft-replayed address to the national Tea Party Convention on Saturday. The fallout from the speech has been predictable. Her base unified firmly while the left calculates just how big a threat she’ll pose in November and 2012. Meanwhile, the cable and Web echo chambers have honed in on the delectable story of some crib notes that Palin conspicuously wrote on her hand to remind herself of prepared talking points.

Embarassing, perhaps, especially after Palin knicked Obama in the same hour for also trying to appear candid by reading from a teleprompter. But it’s far from a fatal gaffe. There was much more included in Palin’s speech and her general self-promoting strategy to pick apart, and Republican politicos aren’t happy with any of the above.

Since Palin appeared on the national stage, her strategy has been Palin First, promoting herself and firing up her base without much regard for paying her dues to the rest of the party. She has hand-selected which candidates she’ll endorse, even though the vast majority could be helped with a Palin nod or rally appearance. She has also made Washington in general (which includes congressional Republicans) a frequent target, even though most of those party heads would be vital for building broad party support behind a Palin candidacy. And as I mused from Nashville, her unwillingness to move to the conservative center offers little promise for uniting the Republican base behind a single candidate or cause this year.

Two Republican Hill staffers say that their bosses are concerned about Palin’s conduct, especially when the party has such good prospects for legislatively upsetting Democrats in November. “Twitter and Facebook are tools to promote yourself, but they're not a way to build up the party, which she could easily be doing,” says one staffer.

What's more, Palin apparently missed a golden opportunity Saturday night to define the tea-party movement, not as a fringe group of angry and unrealistic activists, but as a formidable burgeoning voice with real, concrete alternatives to the Democrat's agenda. But she didn’t. She filled her speech with applause lines and one-liner jabs, not a road map of specifics for a way forward.

In politics, it’s impossible to turn on a dime. Palin offers genuine hope and a real way for Republicans to unify, and so far, she’s the furthest ahead in the pack for 2012. But her time as a free agent is quickly running out, leaving much of her party wondering when she'll start hitting for the team.