Palin signs, left; Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a contender for the VP slot, beams at McCain’s choice, right

Everyone seems to agree that whether John McCain wins or loses, Wednesday, Nov. 5 will be the first day of Sarah Palin’s 2012 race for president.

Then again, maybe it’s already started.

Looking around the Fantasy of Flight aircraft hangar where the [Palin] rally took place, one could see all the usual reminders that it was a pro-McCain event. There were two large “Country First” banners hung on the walls…Many of the men and women in the audience wore McCain hats and t-shirts.

But on closer inspection, the GOP nominee’s name was literally nowhere to be found on any of the official campaign signage distributed to supporters at the event…

The other sign handed out to supporters read “Florida is Palin Country,” but those signs were neither paid for by the Republican National Committee nor the McCain campaign. In small print, the signs were stamped with the line “Paid for and authorized by Putnam for Congress” — as in, the re-election campaign of Florida congressman Adam Putnam, whose district skirts Polk City.

Putnam plus Palin is a match made in hell, and I would not be at all surprised to see the two spawns of Satan work together in the future. Palin/Putnam in 2012? Sure, why not?

Putnam, after all, is the third ranking Republican in the House of Representatives. He took his place on the national media stage after he peddled a false story about new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supposedly demanding a larger plane than former Speaker Denny Hastert’s. Putnam’s lies about Pelosi knocked the story of Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley’s resignation over a scandal involving teen male pages off the radar. The fact that the Pelosi story wasn’t true was to Putnam a small detail.

He’s just Sarah Palin’s type of guy.