Palin's Problems Persist Outside GOP Base
As the chattering class weighs her decision to resign, it's worth noting that AK Gov. Sarah Palin has a lingering image problem with voters outside the conservative base. In a new piece, Pollster.com's Charles Franklin explores her electoral struggle:
Of all the dimensions on which Palin can be viewed, the one that is most crucial for any national ambitions she may hold is the most fundamental: is she qualified to be president? One might focus on her issue positions, her personality, her policy knowledge but the most basic question voters could and did ask in 2008 was "is she qualified to take over as president if that became necessary?" That's what all the other details boil down to. So let's take a quick look at how the 2008 campaign affected that view among voters.From the announcement of her pick as VP through the convention and before her first national news interview with ABC's Charles Gibson, Palin had a small plurality seeing her as qualified to be president rather than not qualified. For an essentially unknown governor from a remote state, this reflected a mix of partisanship, trust in McCain's judgement, a well received convention performance and a bit of benefit of the doubt.
Confidence in her readiness to be president declined overall up until election day, however, proving that more exposure to her prompted greater wariness.
Franklin:
From the beginning to the end of the campaign, Palin steadily lost ground with the electorate. Each week more voters perceived her as unqualified to be president. Her base of support was about 40%. Those seeing her as qualified declined from the high 40s to a stable 40% through the last 2/3rds of the campaign, with one final poll falling a bit below that.The "not qualified" trend rose, from the low 40s in early September, to nearly 60% by election day.
If she has any hope for a return to politics -- and who knows at this point if that's her ultimate goal -- she'll have to reach beyond the faithful to put together anything more than a flash-in-the-pan bid for the White House.