SARAH'S RISE – AT 8:42 A.M. ET:  Sarah Palin has taken her political lumps, including some skepticism from this website – but not only is she undeterred, she is winning new respect. 

True, a recent poll reported that 71% of Americans think that she's unqualified to be president.  But Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times's excellent Top of the Ticket blog points out that Sarah's rise is occurring a bit under the kind of radar equipment employed by the mainstream media.  But it is occurring:

What base does anyone see coalescing around other potential GOP competitors?

While vocal Palin-haters reveled in her awful recent national poll numbers about presidential qualifications, they missed a fact: if she decides to run for anything, the first goal is to become the GOP nominee. And the voters Palin needs to convince about that are state-by-state Republicans, 69% of whom still see her favorably.

Anyone who's talked to her GOP supporters in recent weeks or watched her work a crowd comes away with a powerful sense of the Palin fervor. The more she's derided by others or in the media, the more convinced her fans are that she is like them -- a regular person derided by so-called elites, often unfairly. Translating such energy ultimately into votes is the key.

And as Malcolm reports, some discerning columnists have started to take note:

And by an impressive coincidence two political experts with wise eyes and decades of experience studying and observing American politics and its transient characters have recently tapped out favorable reviews of this self-defined political rogue who unexpectedly overthrew the entrenched GOP establishment in Alaska when none of the regulars gave her a chance.

The veteran Jules Whitcover of the Baltimore Sun wrote a column this week headlined: "Sarah Palin as GOP nominee in 2012? Don't laugh it off."

"Sarah Palin may come off as a bit ditzy," he said, "but stupid she is not."

Whitcover noted that polls show the highest voter anger or dissatisfaction with the federal government in a decade (about two-thirds).

Then, he recalled another political outsider who followed a one-term Democrat, Ronald Reagan, once also derided as a mere entertainer, who "30 years ago successfully rode a similar dissatisfaction with Washington by promising to 'clean out the swamp' there."

The other columnist, whose observations we reported last week, is David Broder, who, after observing Palin carefully, gave his verdict:

The lady is good.

Malcolm concludes:

We'll see exactly how good she is in coming months. What is certain right now is that as good as Obama was at ultimately reaping $750 million and winning the White House, no one was paying this kind of attention -- positive or negative -- to him this far ahead of his 2008 nomination or election.

COMMENT:  One of Palin's strongest points, of course, is that she continues to intrigue.  Anyone who thought she'd fade away, or be laughed off the stage, has been proved wrong.

February 17, 2010