Iron Laws of Politics, Updated (With Palin!)

My favorite Iron Law of Politics is that New York City Mayor is a dead-end job, no matter how much hype any particular mayor may received about his or her gubernatorial, or, yeah, presidential prospects.  So while there was, I think, a bit of actual news in this highlighted NYT article, I'd certainly recommend ignoring all speculation that Michael Bloomberg is thinking about the White House again.

But, following Mickey Kaus's advice (well, I guess it wasn't really advice, but still...glad to have him back blogging, anyway), I realized I need a new Iron Law of Politics that's a little more Palincentric, or even Palinriffic.  So here goes: No former Veep nominee who spent half the campaign publicly feuding with the presidential nominee's staff, and then wrote a book trashing that staff, will ever be seriously considered for the #2 spot again.  No matter how much her fans may think it's a good idea.  Indeed, I strongly suspect that no future president would ever appoint such a person to a position from which she could potentially betray him or her, so probably no cabinet posts either.  Thus while I thought that David Sessions sounded otherwise sensible about Mike Pence and Values Voters, I'm afraid I can't take anyone seriously who believes an Iron Law of Politics might be violated (if that's what he's saying...if he's just saying her fans would support such a thing, then he's off the hook). 

I really wish that it was an Iron Law of Politics that under the modern process only first time candidates could capture the Democratic nomination for president and only repeat candidates could be the GOP nominee (current presidents excepted in both cases), but alas Al Gore and George W. Bush are exceptions, and Iron Laws really should have some stronger implied causal mechanism (yeah, I know...Walter Mondale sort of ran in 1976, and George McGovern definitely ran, albeit at the last minute, in 1968, but you can define both of them away if you really want to).  One might say, I suppose, that violation of it is an Iron Law and talk about the sorts of cataclysms that result from breaking Iron Laws of Politics, but