President Palin?

“If there’s no one else,” apparently.

So, let there be someone else. An heir and successor of Republican calls for Europe to revert to pre-1914 borders and thus end the First World War. Of those Republicans who resisted entry into the Second World War until America was actually attacked by either side. Of Eisenhower’s ending of the Korean War, his even-handed approach to Israel and the Palestinians, his non-intervention in Indo-China, and his denunciation of the military-industrial complex. And of Nixon’s suspension of the draft, his pursuit of détente with China, and the ending of the Vietnam War by him and by Ford, an old stalwart of the America First Committee.

Let there be an heir and successor of Reagan’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 1983, and, especially, his initiation of nuclear arms reduction in Europe. Of James Baker’s call to “lay aside, once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel” and to “foreswear annexation, stop settlement activity”. Of Republican opposition to the global trigger-happiness of the Clinton Administration. And of Bush the Younger’s removal of American troops from Saudi Arabia after 9/11, thus ensuring that there has been no further attack on American soil.

Let there be a candidate to reach out to those who would otherwise be attracted to Sarah Palin, with her admirable history as a Buchananite battler for job protection, for war aversion, for immigration control and for family values against the archenemy of all of them, the global “free” market, and with her record as Governor of Alaska on the basis of publicly administered natural resources held in common ownership.

Let there be a candidate to reach out to those who would otherwise be attracted to Mitt Romney, the prophet and apostle of socialised medicine, who ran for the Senate from the left of Ted Kennedy. Let there be a candidate to reach out to those who would otherwise be attracted to Mike Huckabee, economically one of the most left-wing governors in American history, and who also happens to be against abortion and same-sex “marriage” while in favour of Second Amendment rights. And let there be a candidate to reach out to those who would otherwise be attracted to Ron Paul and to his opposition to bailouts, to wars, and to the erosion of constitutional checks and balances.

That candidate need not necessarily be a Republican.