she was not at the top of the ticket!! she was not running against Nobama!! McCain was. Sorry but your theory is utterly rediculous and reasoning inherently flawed.
People were very aware of her. They had a chance to vote for her. They didn’t. Instead they voted for 0bama. Either a candidate has it, or they don’t.
If Palin ran against 0bama in 2012, everyone would say “we’ve seen this race before.” And they would be right.
It would amount to a rematch, just like Mondale vs. Reagan, Stevenson vs. Eisenhower, or Dewey vs. Truman. All three of those races had candidates who ran on opposing tickets 4 years earlier, and all were considered rematches, even though some had been VP candidates in the prior election. And all three challengers went down to even worse defeats the second time around.
Rematches are always ill-conceived.