Kevin K. catches the Los Angeles Times’s Andrew Malcolm in a head-spinningly strange fit of Sarah Palin-boosting.
Something to ponder for 2012: Sarah Palin’s ahead of where Obama was 30 months before his nomination
A recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll found that 30 months out from the 2012 party presidential nominations, only 71% of Americans believe that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president.
This compares with someone named Barack Obama. At the same point in his then unannounced campaign, 0% thought he was qualified for the Oval Office. That’s because he wasn’t even on the polling lists’ radar then.
I’m sure this is good for the newspaper’s traffic, but it’s deeply silly. There was a poll on this topic when Obama got into the presidential race in February 2007. And 40 percent of survey subjects gave their reason for not supporting Obama as “lacks experience to be president/not experienced enough.” Even if you merge that with the 7 percent who said Obama was “not qualified,” that’s 24 points lower than the number of people who say, right now, that 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is not fit for the Oval Office.
The fact that Palin fans have to engage in spin like this really says it all about her 2012 chances.