Palin closes in on Obama

From the Los Angeles Times:

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, look what the pollsters just brought in.

A pair of new surveys revealing that Democrat President Obama is still declining and has hit a new low in job approval among Americans just 56 weeks after they elected him with a decided margin.

And -- wait for it -- Republican Sarah Palin is successfully selling a whole lot more than books out there on the road. Even among those not lining up in 10-degree weather to catch a glimpse of pretty much the only political celebrity the GOP has these days.

First, el jefe. Facing double-digit unemployment, rising spending, deficits and Afghan war casualties plus a keystone but stalled healthcare reform effort that caused a rare Sunday presidential visit to Capitol Hill, Obama recently fell below 50% job approval for the first time.

Then, last week's deft dance of rhetoric over sending reinforcements to Afghanistan but, on the other foot, bringing them home quickly maybe gave him a brief boost. That, however, collapsed with equal rapidity.

Obama's new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.

Regular Ticket readers will recall how in this space in late November we pointed out that Obama's closely-watched job approval slide was coinciding with Palin's little-noticed rise in favorability. And it appeared they might cross somewhere in the 40s.

Well, ex-Sen. Obama, meet ex-Gov. Palin.

The new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Palin now at 46% favorable, just one point below her fellow basketball fan.

(The same poll, btw, has bad news for Dick Cheney-haters; the outspoken former VP has climbed out of the 29% basement back up to 39% now. How do you suppose he's done that without a new book? But that's another story.)

Not that either Palin or Obama will admit caring about such trivial things as disparate political polls....

Now would all the people who have been saying things like "sure Palin's great, but she's just too unpopular" shut the frak up!

If you don't think she would make a good president fine, just say so. But stop this "she can't win" whine. Like I've told you all along when the people get to meet her, unfiltered by McCain campaign staffers who hated her because she is conservative, they will love her.

Let's remember something. Come 2012 anyone who will not vote for Sarah Palin because she is "too conservative" will wind up voting for Barack Obama anyway no matter who the Republicans run. Colin Powell and a whole raft of so-called "moderates" proved that. When the Republican party nominated exactly the kind of moderate candidate they had been telling us to nominate they repaid the GOP by voting for Obama.

40% of the people in this country identify themselves as conservative. 20% identify themselves as liberal. That means that to win a presidential election Democrats have to convince 30% plus 1 either that they really aren't all that liberal or that being liberal is the way to go.

Republicans, on the other hand, only have to convince 10% plus 1 that conservatism better serves the nation - provided that they can convince the conservative base that their candidate is genuinely conservative.

Which is easier, to persuade 30% of a lie or 10% of the truth?