Palin Has the GOP Blue Bloods Nervous

Sarah Palin has had a high-profile week, and the country club blue bloods in the Senate are getting nervous:

Sarah Palin has begun to get on the nerves of Republican senators who say the former GOP vice presidential nominee is taking her own White House aspirations entirely too seriously.

But those same senators may have their eye on a 2012 White House run or be friends with senators with presidential ambitions. And Palin, who does not have a lot of Washington connections, energized the party’s grass roots in 2008 while bucking the D.C. establishment, leaving much of the party’s elite grumbling about her appeal to the conservative base.

Several GOP senators offered searing criticism of the Alaska governor when asked in recent interviews whether she could pose a credible challenge to President Obama in 2012.

“She has to hunker down and govern and show she’s not a joke,” said a GOP lawmaker who represents one of the southern battlegrounds of the 2012 election.

The GOP is pretty much an insider's club and not an easy group to break into. Palin may have something the old fuddy-duddies in the Senate generally don't have - star power:

She reportedly worried that she could overexpose herself on the national political stage. But several GOP senators said she has much graver problems to worry about than attending a private dinner to raise money for Republican candidates for Congress.

“[Democrats and the media] did a number on her,” said the lawmaker from the southern battleground. “She has some hurdles, especially among independents and Democrats.

“She lost support among the independents and moderate Republicans, and a lot of them give money,” the lawmaker added.

But the lawmaker said that Palin could pursue a path similar to the libertarian Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul (Texas), who raised tens of millions of dollars in small gifts over the Internet.

A senior GOP lawmaker said that while Palin may not be taken seriously by some Washington elites, she remains wildly popular among blue-collar conservative voters.

“Her supporters relish the idea that she doesn’t have a lot of money; she could raise it in small amounts over the Internet like Barack Obama,” said the lawmaker. “She’s about the only person in our party who can draw a crowd.

I don't know that she's the person to lead the ticket in 2012, but she could certainly be a player. And by 2016, at age 52 and with two terms as governor, she could be a powerful candidate for the first woman president.