Geez can we trade families? Mine all loves them some Palin, went to the Beck rally, and everythin'.

I think bad times will continue to drive the Tea Party, and Palin seems to have pushed her way to the front of that line.

I think that the election is so far away, that it's silly to make predictions.  If there's one ting we should have learned is that polling this early is silly, events often dictate choices in elections, there's a ton of money to be spent on lying about candidates and issues, and no matter who is elected, it's a class war we're in, not essentially a party war. 

And if we don't start kicking back on that war, it won't matter.  We stil have two years under this President, many indicators that unemployment and foreclosures will be worse, and that there won't be any more job stimulus and projects.

And unless Obama gets wise to smarter economics, we're screwed, then he's screwed in 2012.  Someone will capitalize on the anger and frustration agoinst the banks and the oligarchy, and unless some more radical lefties act as a counter-measure to kick Centrist/Rightist Dems rears into gear, things will not go well for Obama, IMO. 

I still think that the only way Palin could win the general election is if Mike Bloomberg makes a bad calculation and runs as a third party candidate, siphoning off just enough votes from Obama to allow Palin to slip in with 34% of the vote. Electorally it would be even uglier. 

As for "If not Palin, who?"  Excuse me, but I have to hold my nose ... The semi-delusional Mike Pence? Egocentric Secessionist Gov. Rick Perry? That GOP budget idiot, Paul Ryan? (Okay, I'll stop now because it just goes downhill even faster from there.)

RE: "In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 55 percent of Republicans approve of Palin, but only 9 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independents.

You should track down that poll and check out the exact question, because it doesn't necessarily mean they approve of her for president. It doesn't sync with this poll AT ALL:

Looking Ahead to 2012

When asked who they would most like to see nominated as the Republican Party’s candidate for President in 2012, roughly equal numbers choose Sarah Palin (15%), Mike Huckabee (15%) and Mitt Romney (13%).  Another 9% say they would like to see Ron Paul nominated, 6% Newt Gingrich, 4% Tim Pawlenty, 3% Haley Barbour, and 2% Rick Santorum.

While Republicans are substantially more likely than Democrats or independents to pick a favored candidate at this point, the top names remain the same, with Palin (18% of Republicans), Huckabee (19%) and Romney (17%) leading the pack. The candidate preferences of Americans who agree with the Tea Party largely mirror the preferences of Republicans overall.

Most Americans (56%) say they would like to see other Democratic candidates challenge Barack Obama for the Party’s nomination for president in 2012, while 38% say they would not.  This is substantially less support for an intra-party challenge than in December of 1994, when 76% said they would like to see a Democrat challenge Bill Clinton for the 1996 nomination. Democrats, in particular, have different feelings today compared with 1994.  Then, Democrats supported seeing someone challenge Clinton by a 66% to 30% margin.  Today, they oppose a challenge to Obama’s nomination by a 62% to 34% margin.

from

Pew Research Center for People and the Press
November 11, 2010

Mixed Reactions to Republican Midterm Win
Public Less Happy Than After 2006 and 1994 Elections

You should read the first three pages at least, as the report addresses a lot of your questions, especially on page 3 (Section 2: Views of the Parties, Prospects for Compromise) there are several questions and charts related to the Tea Party with break downs for Republicans, like  The Tea Party and GOP’s Future and Is Tea Party Separate from the Republican Party? There is also a lot about

I think approval ratings are overestimated as an index by which to predict elections. The midterms suggest that people don't vote according to some weighing up of comparative pros and cons of candidates. Their voting behavior is determined by whether they think the incumbent deserves to be rewarded with reelection or punished by getting voted out.

The latter is a very different dynamic. People liked the GOP candidates less than dems last month. But they wanted to punish the dems for not doing a good enough job. So looking at Palin's approval ratings is misleading. If Obama is still 'failing' in 2012, he will get voted out, whoever the other guy or gal on the ballot happens to be. That said, I don't think Palin actually wants to be President. She's more likely to be kingmaker, and throw her weight behind someone like Demint.

So my prediction: if unemployment is above 10%, Obama loses. If it is below 10% he wins.

First off, tea-baggers are the gift that keeps on giving...to the GOP, that is. The GOP took them in willingly with promises to fulfill their political whims if they would only vote for their party. Of course the GOP never had the slightest interest in their out-of-the-ballpark beliefs...they just needed the votes to get their candidates elected...purely political. And the tea-baggers were more than willing to cooperate cause they knew their time was a coming. But after Bu$h and the GOPer's let them down, they took matters into their own hands.

What's interesting to note is while some are waging election fights against Democrats, it's the intra-party fights where the most bruises are being delivered. In short, the tea-baggers are fighting for control over the GOP in ways the elite aren't too accustom to. After all, tea-baggers have years of experience at being shoved aside to make way for more important political matters, so they found it was just as easy to turn the tables on the internal power brokers and dictate their terms of engagement.  Ever notice how the GOPer political high mucky-mucks steer clear of tea-bagger tentacles?...it's not their fight and is more of a distraction from what's really important to the goals of the Party.

It's safe to say, none of the political big names will consider tea-bagger important unless they need their vote or they find themselves up against one of their selected candidates in the next election.

As for sista Sarah, the best thing to do it let her run with it cause there's only two inevitable outcomes. First, she makes an ass out of herself. Second, the GOP'er's screw the economy up further and unemployment stays in the 9% bracket or higher so the average voters sees no point in electing known candidates...they just close their eyes and let their fingers do the thinking for them and hope their vote for an unknown might make thing turn to the good for a change.

The real problem is the GOPer determination to halt all legislation in Congress to make Obama look bad and paint him as a one term President. That opens Palin's chances of actually running and possibly winning closer to a simple coin toss...50/50.

Since I can still add more comments, take a look at McCain...he's endorsing Palin as if she were the real McCoy and fully capable of waltzing into the White House without a problem. Of course, his end game is payback for the lack of GOPer support during his campaign. And you can sure bet your ass Palin picked up on it. So Palin will mount her quasi-campaign free of the GOPer elite and steal a huge portion of the GOPer block with her.

It's enough to make any GOPer candidate think really hard about running. It would be shameful and painfully embarrassing if the GOPer candidate ends up in 3rd place with less than 10% after all the trouble the GOPers have caused in the last 4 years to humiliate and discredit Obama and Democrats. And it would be shameful and highly embarrassing if Obama doesn't grow a set of cahunas and start governing as if he knew what he was doing cause Palin is riding on a wave of public mistrust in his ability to govern.