Two interesting polls just out. One is up over at Memeorandum. (That would be this first one.) Rasmussen Reports indicates that 40% of GOP voters say Sarah Palin’s resignation as governor of Alaska will hurt her in 2012:
Forty percent (40%) of Republican voters nationwide say Sarah Palin’s decision to resign as governor of Alaska hurts her chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination in 2012.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of GOP voters finds that (24%) believe Palin’s resignation helps her chances of winning the Republican nomination, while 28% say it will have no impact on the race.
But that doesn’t mean Palin isn’t near the very top of the list when Republicans are asked what they think of her and whom they’d vote for in 2012 – as new data set for release at noon EDT today will show
After all, 61% of GOP voters say it is at least somewhat likely that Palin will run for president in 2012, including 23% who say she is very likely to do so.
Yet another poll appears to indicate that a lot of Republicans would vote for Palin. But that most Americans say her decision would have no effect on their decision to vote on a Palin candidacy:
It was a stunning announcement that caught many across the country completely by surprise. (Ed Note: No, it caught EVERYONE by surprise. Nobody saw this one coming.)
Now, four days after Sarah Palin announced that she will step down later this month as governor of Alaska, a new national poll by USA Today/Gallup indicates that seven in 10 Americans say Palin’s decision had no affect on their opinion of her.
The survey also suggests a wide partisan split over whether respondents would likely vote for Palin if she decides to run for the White House in 2012. More than seven in 10 Republicans said they would be likely to vote for Palin for the presidency. That number drops to 34 percent among independents and to 17 percent among Democrats.
The polls are not contradictory. They are not asking exactly the same question. (Actually, they are asking completely different questions.) Taken together, however, they do indicate why the left has been on the offensive against Palin even more so after the announcement:
Her numbers look pretty good overall for a run. Strong – actually, very, very strong – base support and a winnable middle with sufficient work between now and the election. There is also enough support among Democrats to cause worry for that party.
Can she do it? I have no idea. There is a lot of work here for her to pull it off. But if the economy continues to spiral down, pushed by insane spend and tax policies from the Democrats in control in Washington, a lot of the heavy lifting gets done by that party.
Or rather, heavy burying of their own party.
I don’t think she willbe a viable candidate in the future no matter what the polls say now. All an opposing Democrat has to do is paint her as a quitter, a person who leaves before the job is done or as a person who folds under pressure or both. As long as the media remains the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, that’s all it will takeas most of the country will never hear any other point. That was amply demonstrated in the last election where the media painted her as an unqualified airhead by slanting and even deliberate editing of their reporting and that was became the common opinion of her. The media harped on her ‘lackof experience’ while they completely avoided speaking of Obama’s experienceknowing that he had even less than she did. It worked. It will work again as long as the media remains united in their reporting.