She's Always Running Against Murkowski...

...or maybe it was one of her earlier opponents in local elections. Anyway, Sarah Palin, in her mind, is always the outsider running against entrenched pols:

"What people are desiring to see is no more status quo — not necessarily just seeing more players in these political machines, who are sort of preordained and get to be the ones who get nominated and go forth,” Ms. Palin said. “People are ready for our governmental establishment to kind of shake it up."

On this, at least, I'd be shocked if she wasn't perfectly sincere -- if it's an act, she's amazingly convincing, at least to this observer. Yes, I know -- the Sage of Wasilla is hardly the only candidate in American history to embrace the underdog imagine regardless of her actual standing. Still...

It's just nuts. Perhaps she's an outsider in some sense compared to second-generation pol Mitt Romney, but she's on Fox News, she's widely quoted by everyone, and she was the Republican Party's Vice Presidential nominee a couple of years ago. There's no "political machine" to run against, no "preordained" candidate. It's all nonsense (as, for example, Seth Masket pointed out recently). There is, of course, an actual political party, which has various internal groups, some of which have very strong voices on particular issues of concern to them, but that's about it. Not even George W. Bush got a nomination handed to him. The way to get these things is to earn them.