And I'll bet that ONE person is his daughter ~ ~ and the connection between Palin's approval numbers and Limbaugh/Beck is not remotely surprising ~ for some strange reason, the acronym "GIGO" jumps into my mind ~ ~ Sooz

I'd say the Republican Party is in some for deep doo-doo.

Dee, don't you think the Palinites have a chance of winning the rest of us over?

It seems to me that the key numbers in the poll are that only 18 percent of Republicans support Palin and .12 percent support Cheney. Since they're the only two politicians mentioned those number have to be pretty discouraging for them that want to reshape the party according to their brand of "conservatism."

No way grampatom.

It's not unusual for a party that just lost an election along the lines of what happened in 2008 to have a large field of potential candidates for the next election, with non of them having a significant segment of the party behind them. The Democrats after the 2000 election had a similarly dispersed support of potential candidates - in fact, Joe Lieberman was the leader in some of those polls. Of course, the Democrats ended up with a loser like John Kerry as their 2004 candidate, so there's still hope for the Democrats to somehow maintain control of the White House in 2012.

I'll see if I can find a poll for the Republicans after the 1992 election - There was a huge field there, and Bob Dole was the leader, but I would be surprised if in November of 1993 he was over the low 20's in support among Republicans.

Gop: The trouble with your theory is that there isn't a plethora of candidates right now. People mention other potential candidates like Huckabee or Romney but they, themselves, ae not really putting themselves out there. The point I was trying to make is that there is a segment of the Republican party that is trying to redfine the meaning of the word "conservative" and shaping both the word and the Party to fit their mould. This poll has to be discouraging to that group since there's really ony one candidate that reflects their values and she only excites about 18 percent of the entire party. If you look at the actual Post analysis of the poll the news for them is even worse since, as it points out, fewer people identify themselves as Republicans than since 1981 and, of those who do, forty percent don't see any of the crop of potential candidates as worthwhile. In short, that far right "conservative" movement seems to be dead in the water - which is probably a good thing for the Republican Party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/29/AR2009112902935.html?hpid=topnews