Let’s do some math.

Sarah Palin is 45 years old. She is a future president of the United States. Perhaps in 2020. Even by 2024 she will only be 60 years old.  Think about that. There is nothing worse than a person peaking too young. Let’s let her age like fine wine. It will be worth the wait. If she hurries into 2012, she may blow it.

Let’s keep Palin in check for now, mold her, build her up slowly, let her become a national spokesperson and fundraiser. As a non-candidate, she can do what she wanted to do in the McCain campaign but was not allowed to – speak her mind fearlessly.

Having been savaged by the media, she will feel none of the restraint that McCain felt after McCain was treated well by the media for years as a “maverick” Republican. Sarah Palin can run not only against Obama and his policies, but against the media as well.

The media have exhausted themselves attacking Palin. Further attacks will only be overkill, and will make the media look like the weak and petty tyrants that most Americans know them to be. Palin will be like SuperWoman, with bullets bouncing off of her. She will run as EveryWoman, with kids and hard work and patriotism and love of country. The media will be powerless against her. They have shot themselves out of ammo.

Palin has a very valuable role to play for the next 5 to 10 years – rebuilding the GOP while engaging – and enraging – the Democrats and the media. In The Art of War, written in the 5th century BC, Sun Tzu said to use intelligence and guile to defeat an enemy, even a numerically and militarily superior one. Palin can draw the Democrats into a thousand little battles, keeping a sunny smile on her face while draining their energy and exposing them for the petty, small-minded hacks that they are.

As she shows calm and poise in contrast to the angry elites in New York, San Francisco, Hollywood and Washington, the American people will start to think: “What is so terrible about her? Maybe the media have been wrong all along.” Slowly the tide will turn her way, and there will be nothing the media can do about it, just as the tide turned Obama’s way in 2008 and nothing could stop him.

Forget 2012. Palin needs time to gain credibility. And she will be stronger for it. She can be the first woman president… when the time is right.

During Obama’s recent trip to Russia, a spate of news stories appeared verifying what we conservatives have been saying all along – that Obama is a flash in the pan, a lot of razzle-dazzle but no substance. Even his media friends are starting to report on the Jimmy Obama Theory, that Obama’s polls are softening like Jimmy Carter’s did, and that the public is seeing that his policies are not working and are far too expensive. That he is rigging the GM and Chrysler bailouts to help primarily his labor union friends. That the stimulus is being targeted at his political allies. And that independent voters – and even some Democrats – are starting to have buyer’s remorse. They did not think Obama was going to pursue his radical agenda despite a thousand warnings from everyone except John McCain. They were wrong.

A CNN poll announced July 9 showed 10 point drops in several areas of approval for Obama since February. Considering that CNN is pro-Obama, this spells trouble. Who knows what the real numbers are. In any event, the trend is clear and understandable. According to a recent Rasmussen poll only 31% of Americans believe that this massive stimulus plan is even working. And according to Rasmussen – which is a generally accurate and unbiased poll – people who strongly disapprove of Obama recently were 8 points more than those who strongly approve. This is a devastating turn of polls for Obama. Democrats suddenly are nervous. What a difference a few months make.

What is important is not the current polls or over-optimism over Obama’s demise. What is crucial is that Obama’s liberal policies are going to cause him further woe. They simply do not work, never have and never will. And thus conservatives should begin to take heart.

Meanwhile, Middle-of-the-Road McCain was exactly the kind of Republicrat that will lose the Republican party another election. Just look at what Republicrat Colin Powell said recently: He said Obama’s policies are too expensive but then added that he did not like slogans like “limited government”. These are the confused musings of  an unprincipled moderate who has no clue what he is talking about. Powell even voted for Obama(!)

Conservative policies always win when enunciated clearly. Even New York City embraced them when it elected Rudy Giuliani in 1993.

The Republican party has many good candidates for 2012, but the front runners are 2008 contenders Mitt Romney and Giuliani. Romney is 62. Giuliani is 65. They both are a good age to become president. Mike Huckabee also has a bright future in the party, perhaps as president or VP.

Those of us who lived in New York City during the years that Giuliani came to office remember a tough, no-nonsense mayor who changed the city rapidly when no Democrat could do it.

But Giuliani, who performed weakly in the 2008 presidential primaries, could do the nation another service by running for – and probably winning – the governorship of New York state in 2010. New York is a fiscal disaster just like New York City was when Rudy took the reins. It is in critical need of reform and a strong hand to control its spending and make it business-friendly again. New Yorkers are starting to feel desperate with tax-and-tax Democrat policies driving business and people away.

The Republican party then should rally around Mitt Romney ASAP for the presidency in 2012. There are pluses and minuses for every candidate, but Romney is here and now and ready to run and largely positive for many Republicans. He is well-known, handsome, well-spoken, has an excellent record in salvaging the 2002 Olympics from fiscal disaster and has a strong track record as a businessman and a governor. He has none of the social distractions of thrice-married Giuliani, whose own son said bad things about him in 2008. Romney has a wonderful wife, five sons and five grandchildren, a symbol of American stability.

Now consider that Meg Whitman, the former CEO of EBay, is running in 2010 as a Republican for California governor as a real economic reformer. Even liberal Californians can see that their state is in dire straits. They will not stand for another Democrat patsy, or another Follywood Phony like Schwarzenegger. They want action.

In New Jersey, Republican Chris Christie is a good candidate for the governorship this year which he can definitely win. The current Democrat governor Jon Corzine is unpopular and tied in with some of the most corrupt politicians in America. Christie is a moderate Republican in a liberal/moderate state, and he is a step in the right direction. Christie will challenge the corruption and overspending in that state which has created virtually zero private-sector jobs in the last 7 years, and 55,000 government jobs in the same period. This is not growth. This is regression.

Now imagine that Romney declares his presidential aspirations next January 1. He then travels around the nation hammering Obama and the Democrats for the 2010 mid-term elections and raising money and profile for Republicans. He becomes the face of the GOP and hope for millions of unemployed citizens. Meanwhile Americans are becoming further unnerved by Pelosi and the Democrats  declaring war on the CIA when they should be focusing on our real enemies. This is more Democrat folly.

On Romney’s wing throughout 2010 could be Sarah Palin, and like a tag-team wrestling match they tour the nation thrashing Obama, incompetent Biden and the tax-addicted Democrat party. Combined they have growing clout in the face of severe recession. They point out how Obama used his political muscle to turn the car company bailouts into grab bags for this friends while letting millions of American slide into unemployment and hopelessness. They point out how Obama’s cronies shut down hundreds of small-town car dealerships, devastating those communities.

Independents listen to Romney and Palin. Conservatives are energized by Palin’s honesty and by Romney’s economic proposals and his promise to appoint conservative judges.

Republicans will make significant gains in the November 2010 election.

Now consider Romney is elected president in 2012 asking the same question Ronald Reagan asked in 1984. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” And the way things are going, the answer for millions will be a resounding NO! They will be desperate for something better than another huge government program. Imagine Romney has Huckabee or Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty as VP and a cabinet filled with pro-growth conservatives and pro-American military advisors. The vice president, along with Giuliani, Whitman and others, then could take a strong role in urging states to adopt serious economic reforms.

On his wings as president, Romney will have Giuliani acting as the reform governor of New York state, Whitman in California, and Christie in New Jersey. And who knows what other Republicans are going to be elected in reaction to the policies of Obama. The Ohio, Virginia, Michigan and Illinois governorships could go Republican.

And then Sarah Palin could be the roving ambassador of conservatism over the next ten years, making money for herself and touring the nation with the message: “We warned you about Obama!” She could be a rock star. Millions would hear her call. She rallies stadiums and theaters and sports arenas and the electricity for genuine reform becomes tangible. She raises huge amounts of cash and helps candidates throughout the country.

The “dead” Republican party rallies around honesty, fiscal responsibility and a return to rational thinking, rejecting the nutty enviro-nonsense of the Democrat party which is killing the economy with lies about ‘global warming’. And like 1980, the GOP disposes of the overreaching Democrats and starts the job of reforming the American economy for another generation of growth and hope.

Please visit my website at www.nikitas3.com for more. You can print out for free my book, Right Is Right, which explains why only conservatism can maintain our freedom and prosperity.