Is Sarah Palin like Hillary Clinton or Dan Quayle?

Is Sarah Palin the frontrunner for the 2012 GOP nomination? That's the claim that's been made by some prominent commentators (here, here, and here), but it's wildly premature. There's a reason that the Intrade futures market currently puts the odds of Palin winning the nomination at 18% (behind Mitt Romney and John Thune) -- in particular, her terrible poll numbers.

It's worth underscoring just how bad Palin's numbers are. The closest comparison to her is probably Hillary Clinton, another female politician with high unfavorables entering an anticipated presidential campaign. But even Clinton had much better numbers than Palin at this point in 2006:

Also, though Palin's ability to raise money and turn out crowds has made her a star within the party, it's unlikely that she will enjoy anything near the level of elite support that helped get Clinton so close to the Democratic nomination.

I've looked back through polls on possible presidential candidates at this stage in the election cycle, and it's difficult to locate an appropriate comparison for Palin. Besides Clinton, the best comparison might be to Dan Quayle, a former vice president with extremely high unfavorables who was widely perceived as not ready to be president. As a result (presumably), Quayle ultimately decided not to run in 1996 and 2000 dropped out of the field before Iowa in 2000. Similarly, though he was perceived as competent, high unfavorables may have helped dissuade Al Gore from running again in 2004 and 2008. Here's how Quayle, Gore, Clinton, and Palin's favorable/unfavorable numbers compare from the Gallup poll question closest to this point in the current electoral cycle:

Obviously, neither Quayle nor Gore inspired the sort of adulation that Palin does today, but there's a reason that they didn't run. Given that Palin can make millions if she stays out of electoral politics, I'd put the odds of her running at less than the current Intrade estimate of 69%.

[Cross-posted to Pollster.com and Huffington Post]

Comments

[Kevin]

What we really need is poll numbers among partisan identifiers or some other way to capture the opinions of those in the primary electorate. It is plausible that the first graph could be produced by much worse out party evaluations for Palin than Clinton.

[bnyhan]

Unless they're in Nexis, you would have to analyze the raw data from Gallup -- you can get it in Roper (will blog it if you do it). I would expect that they are relatively symmetrical, but of course there's no way to be sure without checking. Also, the general numbers are an indicator of (a) how elites within the party will perceive electability in deciding who to support and (b) how opposing candidates will use the electability argument in a primary campaign.

[David in Cal]

The question that proves Palin's unelectibility IMHO is from that Polling Report link:

"Do you think Sarah Palin would have the ability to be an effective president, or not?"

63% Would Not..........23% Would

Unfortunately, there's a good chance that Palin will get the nomination if she goes after it. She's very popular among likely Republican primary voters, and no other Republican has high enthusiasm among this group.

Will she decide not to run? Running for President has a powerful effect on people. Bob Dole ran when everyone except Dole himself saw that he had no chance. Harold Stassen, who originally ran as a serious candidate, continued running every four years through many more elections.

[Andrew]

You mention "elite support." But as we saw in Delaware, there are two groups of elites influencing the Republican Party, and their interests do not necessarily match. Are the talk radio / DeMint / tea party "elites" now more important to Republican primary voters than the traditional Republican elites? Goldwater won the nomination once, remember?

[Repack Rider]

Palin is not built to lead a political campaign. If she attempts to, she will quickly implode from her own stunning incompetence, emotional fragility, arrogance and stupidity, to name but a few of her well-known flaws. Palin only plays in rigged games. She would have to join other GOP primary candidates for debates where she would have have to compete intellectually in public. Na ga happen.

Why is the "possibility" of her running even a subject of discussion?

[MartyB]

"I'd put the odds of her running at less than the current Intrade estimate of 69%."

Interested to know if you put your money on the odds, Brendan. After all, that's what In-Trade is about. :-)