Is Gingrich in the Lead for Palin Endorsement?

The endorsement of Sarah Palin is like getting Boardwalk and Park Place in a game of Monopoly; everyone wants it. To this point, the former Alaska governor hasn't yet tipped her hand as to who she's going to endorse but the stars may be aligning for Newt to pick it up.

Via RCP:

Almost immediately upon Sarah Palin's announcement that she would not seek the Republican nomination for president, the phone calls from almost all of the GOP candidates began pouring in. They wanted her endorsement. 

While Palin has characteristically kept her cards close to her chest, advisers suggest that the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee is likely to endorse before someone emerges as the inevitable nominee -- and that Newt Gingrich appears to be best-positioned to secure her support. 

"They speak very favorably of Newt and what they see as his credentials as compared to Perry and Romney," one member of Palin's inner circle said of the former Alaska governor and her husband, Todd, who has long served as her unofficial chief adviser. Gingrich has been particularly effusive in expressing his admiration for Palin over the last few months, and she has returned the favor by heaping praise on the former House speaker. 

"Newt Gingrich again, I think, did the best because he seems to be above a lot of the bickering that goes on," Palin said on Fox News after a Republican debate in Las Vegas last month, adding that Gingrich would “clobber” President Obama in a general election debate.

The Obama media (mainstream media) wants Mitt Romney to win the nomination, just like it wanted McCain to win in 2008. The reason is three-fold. He is the candidate team Obama thinks it has the best chance to beat; he is the candidate least likely to generate an energetic conservative base; and as a liberal, Romney would be the left's best option if Obama were to lose.

That should tell every Republican voter that Romney is not the best candidate. He, in fact, might be the worst based on those reasons alone.

As for Gingrich, any debate he were to have with Obama would be something the Obama administration desperately wants to avoid. That should be obvious after watching Gingrich against his primary opponents. It is his debating that has got him where he is right now in the polls. The more debates, the better he does.

Assuming Palin is ready to endorse Gingrich and assuming that she has concerns about his D.C. establishment credentials, she's probably right to hold out her endorsement until she gets more of a public commitment from Gingrich - or whomever she chooses to endorse - that crony capitalism will be a thing of the past. That's been her hot-button issue and she should get as much as she can in return for her endorsement.

h/t Drudge