It's Sarah Palin week everywhere this week. Her book is finally out after weeks of preselling, and the candidate -- make that the author -- is suddenly back in the full media glare.
Well, make that the selected media glare. After a debut on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Monday, she settles into multiple appearances on ABC and Fox, by exclusive prearrangement. She also begins a book tour at midweek in Grand Rapids, Mich., moving on to Fort Wayne and Noblesville in Indiana, Cincinnati and Columbus in Ohio, and so on into December.
The itinerary is heavy on venues such as Sam's Club in Fayetteville, Ark., and the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. And it includes just one visit to an early primary state, Sioux City, Iowa.
Of course, no one in Washington can watch any political figure with such universal name recognition and such emotional power maneuver on the national stage without assuming it's all about the White House. Still, the impression that Palin gives is one of a media figure unsure of her own next move.
Does she want Barack Obama's job? Or would she be more comfortable changing places with, say, the woman with whom she kicked off her media blitz?
Naturally, Oprah asked about the presidential race and got the "not on my radar screen" brushoff. Neither she nor her audience seemed satisfied with that.
But then, no one ever owns up to presidential election ambitions from this far away -- not even the incumbent president. What matters now is not what gets said but what's getting done. And by this measure, it is hard to see Palin as part of the serious crowd of Republican bidders in 2012.
That is because her focus remains so resolutely on the failings of 2008.
Revisiting Resentments
Beginning on Oprah, Palin picked up her campaign persona more or less where she had left it in November. Palin's charm and earnest appeal were as apparent as ever. And while she remained on the defensive through much of the broadcast hour -- Oprah remaining very much in charge -- Palin held her own and surely connected with much of her viewing audience.
Yet the main message she carried was about what went wrong last time around, and the many ways she was wronged by others -- principally, the campaign of John McCain and the national news media.
What is most striking about both the book (Going Rogue: An American Life) and the Oprah interview is the emphasis on personal issues and media grudges.
Question: What does she think about Levi Johnston, the father of her grandchild, posing for Playgirl magazine? Answer: Not much.
Question: Why did she continue doing those disastrous Katie Couric interviews on CBS last fall? Answer: She knew they were terrible, but the handlers assigned to her by the McCain campaign thought they were fine.
Palin also said she answered Couric airily when asked about what she read because she had become so annoyed with the "badgering questions" asked by Couric (whom she identified on Oprah as "the perky one").
Palin is clearly worried that people blame her for the GOP's loss of the presidency. That seems unlikely, given all the reasons the party was losing the election before she joined the ticket, and all the disasters that befell the economy in the weeks thereafter. It also seems improbable that too many of her party faithful hold her responsible, given her approval ratings among Republicans (which range in the 70s).
Rebuilding GOP Brand, Or Her Own?
Still, she wants it known that she was not a prima donna or a defiant problem child during the 10-week fall campaign, and she says if there was a script she was deviating from, she had a hard time finding it.
So was she "going rogue," as her book title asserts, or was she merely confused by what a campaign in chaos wanted her to do? Were McCain's men trying to stifle her as a media distraction, or was her role on the ticket a kind of media distraction from the first announcement? Didn't McCain choose her deliberately to change the story line?
In all likelihood, as the week progresses and Palin does more programs, we shall see to what degree she has spent her time preparing for national politics since she quit the governorship of Alaska.
But for now, the question for the media and the political class is whether Palin's real goal is to help the GOP get back in the game, or just to rebuild and rebrand her personal image. On the evidence of her initial interview and the book she has authored, the emphasis is clearly on the personal.

