Republicans are rooting around for someone who can revitalize their brand. As a result, the race for chairman of the Republican National Committee is attracting more interest than usual. Chances are, the chairmanship will go to some gray, colorless figure who is good at vacuuming up money and not so good at communicating a clear and compelling message. Considering that Republicans don't have a clear and compelling message at the moment, this is an entirely forgivable crime. The truth is that the race for RNC chairman doesn't matter very much. What Republicans need isn't a chairman who can do passably well on cable talk shows. Republicans need a Howard Dean. And I think they have one in Alaska. She's busy shooting moose right now, but she'll be back soon.

Remember Howard Dean? He was the boisterous, boyish governor of Vermont who revitalized the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party," and who paved the way for the extraordinary election of Barack Obama. During his 2004 presidential bid, Dean memorably argued that conservative white Southerners--the kind who have Confederate flag decals on the back of their pickup trucks--should be voting for the Democrats on economic grounds. The implicit message was that Democrats should downplay social liberalism to broaden their base. You have to assume Barack Obama was thinking along similar lines when he invited the ardently anti-abortion evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, a move that has infuriated the social left.

As chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Dean has pressed the case for building up the party's infrastructure in the South and West. And though Dean has made a lot of enemies in the process, including Barack Obama's hard-nosed political enforcer Rahm Emanuel, there is no denying that his "50 state strategy" helped Democrats achieve victories in the reddest of red states. To be sure, Obama improved on Dean's approach. Rather than make an offhand remark about Confederate flag decals, Obama offered a sophisticated class-based critique of racial thinking in Philadelphia that had the same general thrust, namely that marginalized blacks and bigoted whites shared the same interests and should act accordingly. But could Obama have raised hundreds of millions without the army of Dean veterans who've transformed the face of political organizing? Actually, there's a case to be made that Dean's 2004 campaign rescued Obama from obscurity in the Illinois State Senate. Because of his strong anti-war stance, Obama was able to draw on the Dean fundraising playbook to defeat two establishment Democrats in a tough Senate primary.

All the same, Dean has been relegated to the margins of the Democratic world. After he steps down from his chairmanship, it's by no means clear what Dean will do next. Obama found no room for him in his cabinet, and Dean is understandably reluctant to slink back to Vermont for a lifetime of drowning his sorrows in maple syrup. One hopes that Obama will find it in his heart to give Dean a prestigious ambassadorship to some sunny clime, a fitting thanks for the thankless job of serving as the Democratic Party's one-man kamikaze squad.

Sarah Palin is, like Howard Dean, a polarizing figure. She's even a polarizing figure among Republicans. Highbrow Republicans and suburban moderates wince at the merest mention of her name. Despite her obvious political skills, conservative thinkers like David Frum and David Brooks consider Palin obviously unqualified for the presidency. Grassroots conservatives, in contrast, idolize Palin as a symbol of everything that is right with America, not least because of the way she lives in accordance with her Christian values--leaving aside all of the money spent on elaborate pantsuits. At least one friend of mine has described her as George W. Bush on steroids, a conviction politician who has never evinced even the slightest shred of self-doubt.

I'm not going to predict what will happen in the 2012 election, but let me spin out a little scenario for you. Let's say Barack Obama is a fairly successful candidate, thus deterring smart youngsters like Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana from throwing his hat in the ring. Jindal, who is running for re-election in 2011, has already said he's staying out of the 2012 race, and there's good reason to believe that he means it. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, one of my favorites, will probably never persuade his wife--a woman even more formidable than Colin Powell's wife Alma--that running for president is worth the hassle. Governor Sarah Palin, in contrast, will be raring to go, and she will have a loyal base of rock-ribbed conservatives to take on former governors Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. Howard Dean was able to draw on anti-war sentiment to fuel his early fundraising success.

Somehow, Barack Obama will tick off a large and important conservative constituency--it could be blunders in Afghanistan, it could be a sweeping environmental proposal that seems to punish energy-producing regions--and boom, you have a recipe for a Palin uprising. In keeping with the Dean precedent, Palin will then raise a staggering sum of money, she will energize tens of thousands of conservatives, and, after a series of high-profile gaffes, she will be crushed at the last minute by slow but steady Mitt Romney, who will win the nomination and lose the general election.

And in the final act, President-elect Bobby Jindal will nominate Sarah Palin to be secretary of offshore drilling ...

Stranger things have happened, my friends. Merry Christmas!