Free Republic

Reactions to Sarah Palin’s decision to resign the governorship of Alaska have been a reminder of her unmatched ability to elicit strong emotions from friend and foe alike. We know some of the reasons why. It’s her evangelical Christianity and her folksy manner. It’s her small-town roots and her “new feminism.” But there is something more. A year ago, Palin gave birth to her youngest son, Trig, who has Down syndrome. Since then, mother and son have become objects of the left’s unrelenting scorn and the right’s unflinching fidelity. An underexamined reason why Palin is loved and loathed so fiercely...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is leading Sarah Palin in the early fund-raising race among potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates, raking in a cool $1.6 million in the first six months of the year, new figures show. Romney, who raised more than any other Republican during his time in the 2008 primary, has continued his torrid pace, more than doubling the $733,000 raised by Palin since Jan. 1. Romney’s Free and Strong America political action committee raised a total of $1,610,019 since Jan. 1 while handing out $74,000 to federal and state GOP candidates nationwide. After expenses, the PAC was...

As the readers of FR know there is a decided gap between Sarah Palin's favorability numbers among her own party and/or Republicans and Republican Independents and who they would actually cast their vote for as POTUS as multiple polls have shown recently. Here is my take on why this is so: 1)There is a certain segment of Republicans or conservatives who firmly believe that Sarah will be too politically damaged by the MSM to be a viable candidate in 2012 even though many of them like Sarah personally or her policies. This is a legitimate concern that I hope does...

Within the margin of error, as these early polls of Republican frontrunners always are. Interestingly, while Sarahcuda’s favorable rating among Republicans remains dramatically higher than either Mitt’s or Huck’s (partly due to the fact that she’s much better known), she can’t put any daylight between herself and them as a choice for the nomination. And then there’s this:

Danny Finkelstein's column today argues that Sarah Palin is the true leader of the Republican party these days. And he doesn't mean that in a good way: There is no more eloquent statement of modern Republicanism than resigning office with time still on the clock. Mrs Palin has chosen to talk about power, rather than exercise it. She would rather write a book and give lectures about being a governor than actually be a governor. And her party has made the same choice. It has cast itself, deliberately, as the opposition, the angry outsider, and it is more comfortable in...

Early poll release this morning from Gallup on who is leading, but it's early...

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Palin’s favorable rating stable after announcement of her resignation.

One in four Republicans say Mitt Romney is their top choice for the 2012 presidential nomination -- giving him a slight lead over Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday. Of all the Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents polled, 26 percent favored Romney as the nominee while 21 percent preferred Palin. Nineteen percent favored former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and 14 percent chose former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. While Palin trailed the former Massachusetts governor slightly in presidential preference, the majority of Republicans polled had a more favorable opinion of the Alaska governor than they did of...