The point I am trying to make is twofold:
1)The GOP primary voters are not buying into the media narrative that Palin is political poison and unelectable.
2)Mitt Romney is NOT inevitable.
I don’t know why anybody thinks anybody is inevitable.
And I don’t think 21% in a primary poll indicates that GOP voters aren’t buying into the narrative. Palin has a strong, vocal, enthusiastic following. What we don’t know is first, is it bigger than 50% of the primary voting poll, and second, can she get 51% of the general election vote.
The top 4 names essentially are tied at about 20% (the poll margin is 4.9% after all). That doesn’t mean Romney isn’t poison, or that any of them have general appeal.
When this came out, I ran the numbers for 3-way races, using the information from this poll, and the 3-way races were still pretty bunched together. Palin I believe led all those as well, although interestingly, she did the worst in a 3-way where Romney dropped out.
I believe she did best if Huckabee dropped out, as they seem to be splitting a somewhat common subdemographic.
I’m still pretty scared about how Gingrich keeps popping up near the lead in these polls, given that Palin is on the news 24/7, and Gingrich seems like such a has-been.