Palin 2012? Forget it

I've argued before that Sarah Palin's chances of winning in Republican primary in 2012 are very small. She has a strong opponent who attracts the same crowd as she does, Huckabee; but without all the negative: appears too ignorant, too divisive, unable to attract independents or city-dwellers and with too many gossip/scandals on her.

Well, it looks like I'm not the only one who believes that.

In the national Election Day exit poll, fully 60% of voters said they did not consider her qualified to serve as president if necessary, while only 38% thought she would be ready to step in. Those figures were daunting enough, but new calculations from the exit poll provided by the NBC News political unit show that outside of the Republican base skepticism about Palin's credentials reached even more imposing heights. While 74% of Republicans thought Palin was qualified, just 35% of independents and 9% of Democrats agreed, the figures (first aired on David Gregory's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Monday night) showed. And while 40% of voters without college education thought she could step in, just 35% of college graduates agreed. Fully 63% of college graduates rated her unqualified. Likewise, while Palin scored relatively better in the South-45% of southerners thought she was qualified, and 53% did not-she faced towering levels of resistance in the east and west (where voters by more than two-to-one in each case considered her unqualified.) The Midwest tracked the national numbers, with two-fifths calling her qualified, and three-fifths not. -Ron Brownstein

Via Marc Ambinder