We hear that in a neighborhood hereabouts, the residents have lopped the tops off their "McCain-Palin" yard signs so that they now read just "Palin." They really should think twice. As governor, fair Sarah was the very thing she and John McCain tried to hang on Barack Obama: a socialist.

Palin raised taxes on the oil companies operating in the state and used part of the revenues to increase the yearly checks the state sends to all Alaska residents. That's called soaking the rich and spreading the wealth. It's called redistributive politics. It could be called socialism by Republicans in an election year. Joe the Plumber wouldn't like it, although most Alaskans, overwhelmingly Republicans, loved it.

There's another thing that should give one pause when regarding Palin as president: she does not seem to recognize that her gubernatorial policies conflict in any way with standard Republican doctrine. For all the talk about how smart she is and what a quick study she is, that's being kind of slow on the uptake.

She's also a little unreliable in her definitions. William Ayers is a terrorist because he helped form an organization that bombed a couple of empty buildings (OK, one was the U.S. Capitol) at night, with no one around. No one was supposed to get hurt and no one did. But asked whether people who bomb abortion clinics are terrorists, Palin wouldn't bite. She wasn't sure at all she'd call them terrorists, even though people have been killed and maimed in clinic bombings.

Already the political pundits, who cannot afford to not have something to speculate about, are taking their best shots at what she's going to do to prep for her 2012 presidential run, which already seems to be a foregone conclusion.

The favored scenario is that when the Senate kicks out the convicted felon Ted Stevens, apparently just reelected to a seventh term, she will run for the seat herself. Because Stevens would leave behind essentially a full term extending until 2014, Palin, should she win, would be in perfect position for a 2012 run.

The Senate seat would be a safe haven to travel the country making speeches and cultivating donors and trying to convince people that the Republican Party will be a functioning entity in 2012. Our new president-elect demonstrated that one need not show any particular distinction in the Senate to win a promotion.

But if that's what she does, she's going to need a speechwriter who's up on what Republicans are supposed to believe.