I know that there are Palin hopefuls out there convincing themselves that Sarah will run for President, but I just don’t think she is interested.  This article describes my thoughts:

By David Corn -Politics Daily

Recently, I asked a GOP consultant, who must remain nameless here, this question: Who advises Sarah Palin? His answer: No one. Really? I asked. Yes, he said, really.

So that explains it.

Palin’s actions keep defying rational explanation. Her sudden retreat from her job as Alaska governor made her seem a quitter — especially when she couldn’t coherently justify the resignation during her surprise July 4 weekend announcement. Even if Palin’s pullout had been a reasonable decision, it seemed as if she had not consulted anyone with PR or political sense on how best to handle the controversial move.

Since then, her performance as a politician with a chance of snagging the GOP presidential nomination has been — to be polite — unsteady. On July 17, Palin, who had become a prolific Twitterer, sent out this message to her tweeps: “10 dys til less politically correct twitters fly frm my fingertps outside State site.” In other words, Palin — who had recently been quoting Aristotle and Thomas Paine in her tweets — would soon dump her AkGovSarahPalin Twitter account, which was being followed by 150,000 people, and start sharing her observations via a new Twitter feed. But she didn’t keep that promise — and has yet to set up a new Twitter account for all those folks who yearn for her 140-character messages. Why keep her base waiting? Any good adviser would have recommended that she keep the tweets flowing.

Toward the end of July, Palin found herself in another curious predicament when she apparently retreated from a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. On her Facebook page — her communications platform of choice these days — Palin maintained that she had not committed to attend the Simi Valley Republican Women’s event. Yet that GOP-gals outfit had issued a press release declaring that she had indeed agreed to speak at their shindig at the Reagan Library. As with an earlier dust-up over an appearance at a Republican fundraiser in Washington, it appeared that Palin couldn’t handle a routine scheduling matter.

Then there’s her book. A few days ago, a GOPer close to Mitt Romney, another potential contender for the 2012 Republican nomination, was laughing as we talked about Palin’s book, due out next month. He was tittering especially about its title, “Going Rogue.” That phrase was used by John McCain’s aides toward the end of the 2008 election to describe Palin’s off-message behavior on the campaign trail. “What voter wants a rogue president?” this Mitt-friendly Republican said to me, pointing out that Romney has finished a book of his own on weighty policy matters that will come out next year. Its title: “No Apology: The Case of American Greatness.”

Read the rest here.

In his piece in the Wall Street Journal, Gerald Seib articulates what I have been trying to explain to fellow Republicans for months now.  The thing that is great about Mitt’s public opinion polling is that he is always progressing.

By Gerald Seib

Most Republicans have just finished what might be called the spring of their discontent. Not much went right in the first half of the year; not much to cheer about.

But not Mitt Romney. For this unsuccessful 2008 Republican presidential contender, it is hard to imagine how events could be moving more decisively in his favor in 2009. One can almost hear him wondering: Why didn’t things break this way last year?

Let us count the ways that the world has conspired to help Mr. Romney. At a time when the Republican Party is straining to find new leaders, other prominent party members who aspire to that role — Govs. Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal and Mark Sanford, and Sen. John Ensign — have stumbled or, in the case of Gov. Sanford, flamed out in spectacular fashion. Mitt Romney now looks by comparison like the serious adult in the room.

Beyond that, the national agenda is squarely focused on the economy — which plays to Mr. Romney’s strength as a successful businessman –

And beyond the economy, what are the other big items on the agenda? Well, one is the auto industry, which happens to play nicely to the Romney background as a Michigander and son of an auto-company executive. The other is health care, which tees up Mr. Romney to talk about the health overhaul he led in Massachusetts while that state’s governor. All this leads, inevitably enough, to talk of Mr. Romney already emerging as a leading contender for the party’s next presidential nomination.

“He’s very genuine when he says he hasn’t made a decision about 2012,” says Kevin Madden, a close aide during the presidential campaign and part of a small team of informal advisers. “I know him well enough to know that when he makes a decision he goes 100 miles an hour. Right now it’s in a lower gear.”

In fact, one of the questions Mr. Romney’s advisers are wrestling with is how to avoid over-exposure. But more exposure seems certain as the health-care debate heats up in Congress, and Mr. Romney is called upon to compare his health overhaul in Massachusetts to the one Democrats are proposing. He is able to say that his plan incorporated some aspects of overhaul that Democrats embrace — a mandate that every citizen acquire some form of coverage, for example — while avoiding the element that Republicans really despise, a government-sponsored insurance plan to compete with the offers of the private sector.

More broadly, Mr. Romney has developed a well-modulated critique of President Barack Obama, one that is tough without sounding harsh.

Besides, talk of a presidential candidacy misses the more relevant point. Republicans are looking for a voice to speak for the party in exile, and Mr. Romney is starting fill the role quite nicely.

Yet the most important thing Mr. Romney is doing may lie elsewhere, in the air miles and shoe leather he is investing to help fellow Republicans.

Last year, Mr. Romney’s political action committee endorsed 84 Republican candidates for federal office and passed out more than $400,000 in contributions, while Mr. Romney appeared at 34 campaign events for Republican congressional candidates.

(Pew research).Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has seen his favorability ratings improve and now enjoys a positive balance of opinion among the general public: 40% rate him favorably, 28% unfavorably. This marks a reversal of opinion from February 2008, during the latter stages of the GOP primary campaign, when just 30% viewed him favorably and 44% expressed an unfavorable opinion.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 10-14 among 1,502 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, finds that impressions of Sarah Palin have not changed much since the presidential campaign. Palin continues to be divisive figure among the general public, with about as many saying they have an unfavorable impression (44%) as a favorable view (45%) of the Alaska governor.

Among Republicans, however, the balance of opinion about Palin is more positive than it is regarding Romney or other leading GOP figures, Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele. More than seven-in-ten Republicans (73%) express a favorable opinion of Palin while just 17% have an unfavorable opinion. Romney, Gingrich and especially Steele are less familiar figures – among the public overall and Republicans – than is Palin. While comparable percentages of Republicans rate Palin and the other Republicans unfavorably, far more view Palin favorably. And Palin continues to be overwhelmingly popular with key parts of the GOP base – white evangelical Republicans (84% favorable) and conservative Republicans (80% favorable).

Since February 2008, shortly before he abandoned his race for the GOP presidential nomination, opinion of Romney has improved across most political and demographic groups, but the shift has been particularly pronounced among independents. In February 2008, just 29% of independents had a positive impression of Romney while 46% had a negative view. Today, that balance is reversed: 44% view Romney favorably and 25% unfavorably.

Positive opinions among both Democrats and Republicans have increased by eight points since early 2008. Among Republicans, Romney has made identical nine-point gains in favorability among conservative Republicans and moderate and liberal Republicans; currently, 61% of conservative Republicans and 52% of moderate and liberal members of the GOP express positive opinions of Romney.

Romney’s favorable ratings have not changed significantly among white non-Hispanic evangelical Republicans; 54% have a favorable opinion now, compared with 52% in February 2008. Among all other Republicans, by contrast, positive opinions of Romney have increased by 11 points, while negative opinions have fallen considerably (from 31% to 16%).