Sarah Palin/Nikki Haley in 2012 or Chris Christie/Jeb Bush?

Like a real assassin, a political assassin like Joe McGinniss understands the subtle and unspoken lore of his craft: He is doing the secret work of his community in his dark corner. He knows and they know. In McGinniss’s case they actually pay him to do it. Like a suicide bomber in Ramallah or Madrid (or shots fired in Memphis or the grassy knoll in Houston) he is hero just for one day to his silent company. But with Sarah Palin it is quite literally true that whatever doesn’t kill her makes her stronger. And makes us stronger. Same with Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who underwent the same torrid and savage assassination attempts while the women on the left in the publishing houses and newspapers in New York and Washington remained silent, otherwise occupied. Maybe Sarah and Nikki should go it alone, together.

Reported here on March 9, 2011, the East Coast conservative establishment and the rising “Guts and Gonads” conservatives would play out in 2012 as Christie v. Palin: “This follows the trend of party division which rose to anxiety in the Texas governor’s primary last spring. The traditionalists, including George H.W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Karen Hughes — as proxy for W. — lined up against Rick Perry. Sarah Palin lined up for Perry all by herself and he won in a landslide [as did Nikki Haley when she received Palin’s support in South Carolina]. Since, even Barbara Bush, dowager of the Bush souls, has joined the faint-of-heart chorus which cries out for the sending of Palin back to Alaska. But wishing doesn’t make her go. Chris Christie is the East Coast establishment’s new single combat warrior against Palin.”

By November we could be in the single combat contest between “that jolly Kris Kringle of conservatism,” Chris Christie, and Palin.

Consider the possibilities of a Sarah Palin presidency. Haley says she doesn’t want to be vice president, but I can’t think of a more enchanted team than Palin/Haley to make Obama/Biden look like something left over from the 1930s. Which is what it is.

How about Donald Trump as secretary of State? I think he’d like that. Rudy Giuliani as attorney general. Lew Lehrman as Treasury Secretary. (Ron Paul at the Fed?) Without question, Rick Perry as chief of staff. That’s the guy who runs things, right? Add to his responsibilities “liaison to governors.” His primary responsibilities there would be to raise the status of governors and build a “supercommittee” of governors and former governors like they have now in the Senate — six distinguished types would do, or maybe 12 (former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner comes to mind, New Hampshire’s John Lynch, Indiana’s Mitch Daniels and Butch Otter of Idaho); a Council of Elders like George Kennan suggested at the end of his life.

That would accommodate and advance the rising, all-important states’-rights issues with minimum contention. Richard Nixon created the matrix in his regional model; an idea before its time, but his regions were in no way culturally coherent. Alaskans and Texans know the meaning of place. Palin and Perry would know how to do it.

And who could possibly be better for Commerce than Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal?

Not to get all outside the box, but wouldn’t Judge Andrew Napolitano be the right choice for the next seat in the Supreme Court? Or chief justice, maybe?

And by the way that’s three New York: Trump, Giuliani, Lehrman; and one New Jersey: Napolitano. A whole new Eastern Establishment.