Prelude to a Run? Sarah Palin to Debut New Documentary in Iowa

With possible GOP presidential candidates dropping like winter temperatures in Antarctica, could this be the perfect political landscape for Sarah Palin to announce her presidential run? If you consider she's set to debut a documentary about her life in June and in the important caucus state of Iowa, you might say yes.

"Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request," Scott Conroy writes on RealClearPolitics. "Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin's governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign."

Bannon obliged, and that project is now nearing its end. The result is a two-hour documentary that will "serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin's prospective presidential campaign -- an unconventional reintroduction to the nation that she and her political team have spent months eagerly anticipating, even as Beltway Republicans have largely concluded that she won't run."

"This film is a call to action for a campaign like 1976: Reagan vs. the establishment," Bannon told RealClearPolitics. "Let's have a good old-fashioned brouhaha."

So how is the country first learning about the film, titled "The Undefeated," now? RCP explains:

When they requested from Alaska's TV news stations footage that was shot during Palin's political rise, they asked for additional tapes containing subject matters that were irrelevant to their project, in order not to raise suspicions. And rather than staying at the well-appointed Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, they instead took up temporary residence in low-key motels.

"We shot on the weekends, and we shot in locations that weren't being used during those weekends," Bannon said. "I did it with a handpicked crew of people I know and trust, and we were able to stay under the radar. The planning for the secrecy of this took many, many weeks."

According to Conroy, the film has two messages. First, Palin is a true Maverick who bucked the trend in Alaska. And second, she's the only conservative "who can both build on the legacy of the Reagan Revolution and bring the ideals of the tea party movement to the Oval Office."

Sounds a lot like a campaign pitch, doesn't it?

You can read more about the film on RealClearPolitics.