The Crossed Pond

That’s not the headline you’ll most often find associated with the new Rasmussen and Gallup polls finding that Sarah Palin is still the second-most favored potential 2012 presidential candidate among members of the Republican base, such that they have any preference at all (an important caveat). But it’s the truth.

Believe it or not, there are still a few of us non culture warrior conservatives out there, and we still vote. Rasmussen, for instance, finds Mitt Romney leading the pack as the person Republicans would most like to see win the 2012 nomination, with 25%. Palin, alarmingly, comes in second with 24% (beating Huckabee and Gingrich and Barbour and Pawlenty, though I have to say I think the latter two lose on name ID (the most germane thing polls this far out are good for checking), and I can’t say I blame them on Gingrich’s poor showing)). What’s alarming is that, among those voters, Palin’s favorables have actually gone up since her resignation.

However, the flip side. Asked who they would least like to see win the nomination, about an equal number of Republicans also name Palin, who wins that particular metric with 21%.

The lesson?

It is silly for smart Republicans to dismiss Sarah Palin, much as we might want to, as not being representative of the party. Frankly, she is, to the extent anybody is. She remains very popular with a significant chunk of the GOP base, and of course as many reasonable and/or moderate Republicans bail on the party, that chunk of the base has only grown more significant (and thus Sarah Palin even more representative). This is why, dogged and overbearing as it is, the persistence of say an Andrew Sullivan on Palin is not misguided. She is not just a sideshow. She can stake as good a claim as a national Republican figurehead, in every sense of the word, as anybody.

But opinion on Palin, even among self-identified Republicans circa 2009 (a rare breed indeed), is not homogeneous by any means. And yes, Sullivan et al, there remain a significant of Republicans who are as horrified by the tabloid express as the rest of the country, and are saying so, and, presumably, will vote so, doing more to keep her out of power, arguably, than all the liberal teeth-gnashing will.

I think, ironically, that the most fair assessment of her prospects in this respect comes from Dailykos.

The good news for Republicans is that Palin’s negatives will make it very difficult for her to win their nomination. The consolation prize for Democrats is that her numbers are strong enough that she just might give it a try.