She has very few principles. What she has are instincts. And she gets support because there are a lot of people out there that share her instincts. But that's not enough.
Reagan worked out because he had more than instincts. He had a complete political philosophy developed over years. Just read Reagan, In His Own Hand.You'll see that Reagan was already miles ahead of where Palin is now.
Now maybe one day Sarah will be a Reagan. At the moment she's terribly politically immature. She's going to have to work a lot harder trying to understand why she believes what she believes. I don't think she'll do it though. She's too intellectually lazy. That's not the same thing as being stupid. She's not stupid at all. But ideas matter. And the foundation for those ideas matters, too.