Yet another sign that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a)may not be wearing well b)has her work cut out for her if she wants to be President because now she is showing signs of poll erosion in her Republican ranks in Iowa:
Sarah Palin’s popularity has declined among the very voters the former Alaska governor would need to impress first were she to seek the 2012 Republican nomination for president, The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll shows.
Palin’s favorability has ebbed with Iowa Republican likely voters, whose most active members make up the state’s presidential caucus electorate, in the past 15 months, according to the poll taken this month.
While a solid majority of this group still views Palin positively, the intensity has waned as Palin has become a regular national media presence but done little to cultivate a support base in Iowa.
The shift is not dramatic, but it raises questions about whether Palin would have staying power in Iowa as she moves closer to a decision on a White House run, pollsters say.
“One might ask the question: Is she wearing well? And the numbers are not moving in a favorable direction on that,” Iowa Poll director J. Ann Selzer said.
The answer appears to be that Palin is increasingly look as if she is frayed around the edges. Once upon a time we used to say here that she had the potential of being a President if elected who’d be a President of the base, by the base and for the base but this and other polls suggest she may have some problems shoring up her base.
With many GOP elites against her and sagging polls this Palin boomlet is in danger of going from a bandwagon to a wobbly skateboard.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.