[Polybius]

Fringe candidates are only taken seriously by their fringe followers. .... South40

Wow! Are YOU calling PALIN a FRINGE CANDIDATE? ..... truthfreedom

Well, according to a recent Gallup poll, only 8% of all voters state that they will "definitely vote for" Sarah Palin while 65% of all voters state that they "definitely NOT vote for" Sarah Palin.

That goes way beyond being a mere "Fringe Candidate".

That qualifies as being an "Über-Toxic Candidate".

That qualifies as "Guaranteed Reelection for Barack Hussein Obama if Nominated as the GOP Candidate".

[South40]

a) I've not advocated for palin
b) She's not even announced she is running
c) Her numbers pro or con, as well as your post, are completely irrelevant in that they have no bearing on the fact that Ron Paul is a fringe candidate who has never received more than a small fraction of the popular vote when he has been lucky enough to get a nomination, something he will surely never do when running as a Republican

[truthfreedom]

Palin is the most well known and the most popular Republican.
She draws the biggest crowds, huge crowds. She’s known to be an excellent campaigner, an excellent speech maker, an excellent debater. She most certainly would not be considered a fringe candidate.

Your numbers are troubling a bit. But the idea is that Palin, herself will be able to sell better than the tv news attacking her constantly have been. She goes up there, does a debate, does really well, and people will say “why was everyone saying she was stupid? She seems pretty smart to me.” and the positives and the negatives will change all around. She goes out there and runs, gets on a bus, her positives go up. Any time there’s any hint that she might be running, her numbers go up.

One thing to consider is this: When people are called on the phone to answer a survey, their knowledge of who is running is rather limited. So, you call someone on the phone, and you read a list of names, they’re going to assume that the people being listed are running, unless they know otherwise. And with Palin, they know that she isn’t at this point actively campaigning. So, when they’re answering on Palin, they know she’s not “in”, because they’d know it if she did announce. So, they’ll say no, because they know she isn’t running at the moment. With Giuliani, a lot of people asked that question would assume he is running. People know him, but aren’t paying so close attention that they’d know if he was running. They could put McCains name up there, just to scare people and make them mad. This isn’t directly related to your polling, but polling in general.