Though ‘always underestimated,’ Sarah Palin would lose to President Obama in 2012, Joe Biden says

Sarah Palin said this week she thinks she could defeat President Obama if she were to challenge him in 2012. Count Vice President Biden among those who aren’t taking her for granted.

“I don’t think she could beat President Obama,” Biden said in a morning interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “But, you know, she’s always underestimated.”

Biden called his Republican counterpart from the 2008 campaign a “real force in the Republican Party,” one that would loom large in the 2012 race.

“Were I a Republican senator or a Republican political leader, I would look and say, ‘Wait, she’s got a good chance of getting the nomination,’” he told CNN’s Larry King. “But look, it’s hard enough for us to figure out our side of the aisle, let alone go over and sort of handicap whether she can win or lose.”

If the 2012 campaign were to pit Obama against Palin, Biden said the choice for American voters would be crystal clear.

“We have a fundamentally different outlook on the world, and I think that would be a really, a really interesting race,” he said.

Asked if she was the GOP opponent Democrats would prefer, Biden again hedged.

“You know, my mom used to have an expression, ‘Be careful what you wish for, Joe, you may get it.’ So I never underestimate anyone,” he said. But “I believe President Obama would be in very good shape.”

Palin has maintained that she would consider running for president if there were not another candidate who shares her vision.

“I’m looking at the lay of the land now, and ... trying to figure that out, if it’s a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family,” she told ABC’s Barbara Walters. Asked if she could beat Obama, she replied: “I believe so.”

Palin has continued to dominate the conversation, with the premiere of her new TLC reality show and the coming release of her second book Tuesday. She’ll embark on a 10-day book tour that takes her through the nation’s heartland, including two states that hold key roles in the GOP’s nominating calendar: Iowa and South Carolina.

mmemoli@tribune.com

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