No, I read up on populism before I posted. Populism is tapping into a popular movement of the people, and can be pro-government or anti-government. IMHO, Palin is tapping into the anti-big-government sentiments of broad group[s of the people, and is populist. Buchanon was populist... REAGAN was populist.
And on the left we had people like Huey Long, Lester Maddox, George Wallace.
Huey - A chicken in every pot. Maddox and Wallace were racists running under the cause of “states rights”. Nothing wrong with being for state’s rights but their underlying agenda was racist.
Then, you are using a very loose definition of populism -- which asks that the government take an activist role on the side of the "little people" against the "corporations".
In his later iterations, Buchanan was indeed a populist. He wanted the government to take an activist role in protecting American industry and jobs -- no matter how inefficient they might be.
Reagan never opined that more government was the solution. Quite the contrary. Palin, similarly.
Your definition of populism is a popular misconception. Actually, it is very specific -- tracing to the era of William Jennings Bryant and the conflict between the Great Plains farmers and the railroads and the millers.