There is no question that she is the leader of the conservative wing, in fact she is the single most influential leader of the GOP.
Palin wasn't anywhere close to being invisible in 2012, she gave us Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and she gave us the only GOP pickup in the Senate, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, over Senator Bob Kerry, to replace democrat Senator Ben Nelson.
Palin had a narrow miss in Missouri when her female candidate lost the primary to Akins, Palin also had a number of victories in the House, in keeping with being the top endorsement in America, of either party.
Palin's reach is incredible, and we can assume that she will be the single most important player of 2014, as it seems she was in 2012.
Ansel for the record I got this from
http://us4palin.com/accomplishments/master-list-of-governor-palins-2012-accomplishments/
“2012 Endorsements Success Rate: 57.14% of endorsed candidates in which an election has been held. In cases involving a runoff, we are counting the runoff as the election having been held for purposes of calculating the success rate of Gov. Palin’s endorsements. Six out of the eight wins were endorsed during the primary season and went on to win the general election. The success rate on this subset is 75%.”
I haven’t second sourced it. But if I summarize: her endorsement record is 57% overall. Her record if she endorsed in the primary was 75%.
I like Sarah, and think she has a lot to offer - I’d like her to use more of her “capital” consistently. And I wonder if she is going for the Ann Coulter career model (write books and give talks) or politician.