Poll Says Palin Not Capable Of Presidency

A new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows that despite all the media hoopla, Americans really don't have a very high opinion of Sarah Palin. Although she has an admiring cadre of support among the right-wing teabagger crowd, the huge majority of Americans just don't see her as capable of a higher office such as the presidency.

The CNN/Opinion Research Poll asked 1,014 Americans between November 13th and 15th whether they thought some top politicians were capable of being president. The sampling error is plus or minus 3 points. Remember, the question was not whether they would vote for the person, but simply is the person capable of performing the job.

The five politicians in the poll were Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Of the five, Sarah Palin finished dead last. Only 28% of those polled said Palin was capable of being president.

Even many Republicans don't believe she is qualified for the job. About 54% thought she was capable, while 44% of them said she was not. But she didn't fare nearly so well among independents, where only 29% said she was qualified to be president. About 90% of Democrats said she was unqualified.

Here are the percentages who thought they were qualified to be president for all five politicians:

Sarah Palin...............28%

Mike Huckabee...............43%

Mitt Romney...............50%

Joe Biden...............50%

Hillary Clinton...............67%

It looks like if Palin is serious about running for the presidency, she has a lot of convincing to do -- even among her fellow Republicans. Both Romney and Huckabee were judged as qualified to be president by 63% of Republicans. That's a full 9 points higher than Palin.

With numbers like these, I doubt if Palin could get the Republican nomination. But if she could somehow manage it, it would be a real gift for the Democrats.