Yeah, agree. I think perhaps Palin is making a statement that she is a conservative and not a Republican. This probably aligns her with the majority of those on this blog. In fact, it seems to me that the Tea Party movement may actually evolve into a political party in it's on right. If this should happen, then we may very well see the political spectrum roughly equally divided with the Democrats representing the the far left, the Republicans the mushy middle, and the Tea Party the conservative right. This would probably give the Republicans (mushy middle)the swing vote going to the left or right issue by issue. But, who knows...
I think your read on this is spot on.
3 things I see that seem to solidify this as a real possibility are the lengths the MSM and the Left are going to discredit and marginalize:
1. Sarah Palin
2. The nationwide tea parties
3. Free Republic
An awful lot of time/$$/energy is being spent telling the rest of America how wrong and/or unimportant all of the above are.