I don’t make many political predictions, and of those that I’ve made my track record is maybe 50/50. However, I am confident in making the following prediction: Sarah Palin is not going to run for President in 2012.

I’m leaving myself a large amount of wiggle room, here. I define “run for President” as meaning that you intend to be President. So, Sarah Palin could run for the GOP nomination, she could win and accept the GOP nomination, she could even run for President without actually running for President. (The only thing that could really prove me wrong is her winning the presidential election and not resigning before taking the oath of office.)

See, I don’t think Sarah Palin is interested in being President. I think Sarah Palin is an opportunist, interested mostly in promoting herself as a brand that can be monetized. Effectively, I think she uses her media-perpetuated visibility as a means of self-aggrandizement. This is evidenced by her resigning her governorship of Alaska and instead accepting a lucrative book deal, and by her laying low after some oblivious comments about the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the subsequent criticism. She is promoting and protecting the brand of…well, her, balancing the rewards of promotion and the risks of overexposure.

It is in the interest of the Sarah-Palin brand to keep people guessing about a run for President. The longer the speculation is drawn out, the more attention it generates, and the more it strengthens the brand. So, she will hint at a run by weaving insinuation and omission until announcing a decision will best capitalize on the brand.

I’m sure Sarah Palin is an astute player, and I think too much is made of her supposed intellectual incuriousity and other foibles, such as being partly responsible for the resurrection of the term “word salad”. She can do the math, and her negatives represent a significant hurdle, likely too great a hurdle for a successful presidential run. Further, she must know that unsuccessful challengers to two-term Presidents rarely recover their political capital (think John Kerry, Bob Dole, Walter Mondale, George McGovern, etc.).

In some circles, Sarah Palin might be called an entrepreneur. She has found a way to monetize what she likes to do. (The primary difference, I’m sure many of her detractors would say, is that her efforts otherwise create no external value.) The question is, how should a political party manage its marketplace of candidates? To what degree should a political party tolerate a candidate whose motivation is that of self-interest?

Among the dominant political parties, the entrepreneur-as-candidate imposter represents a problem that is unique to the GOP. Specifically, if the doctrine of your political party is predicated on the message that investors and consumers represent the paramount regulating agency, that top-down regulation is unnecessarily burdensome and tantamount to socialism (whatever that means), then you cannot oust an imposter from your marketplace of candidates; doing so would be an admission of the inadequacy of the doctrine. Further, the legitimacy of an imposter cannot be challenged, either, since that would draw attention to the inadequacies of the doctrine, which requires that the wisdom of selection be made collectively by donors and voters in the absence of any guiding hand.

This creates on opening for opportunists, those riders of the sometimes intersecting lines of the angry-victim gravy train, like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich (and other hopefuls like Christine O’Donnell, mercifully off the radar for the time being). They are taking advantage of the fact that, with even a modicum of outspoken supporters as a backdrop, their motivations will largely go unchallenged by the leaders of their party, and they can continue to ride the rails.