What is the center's problem with Palin?

Politico:

With his runoff race ending on Tuesday, Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss called in the party's big guns—and Sarah Palin answered the call, stumping across the state today and tomorrow. It's a clear sign of her stature within the party.

Palin’s flash emergence on the national stage has left her as well positioned as any Republican to make a serious run for the GOP nomination in 2012, yet waning support from the political center may threaten her presidential ambitions, according to a Politico analysis of public polling.

A Gallup poll of Republican voters released last Friday found Palin atop a field of ten Republicans, including 2008 primary candidates Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, in a hypothetical 2012 matchup.

Fully two thirds of Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents, want Palin to run for president in 2012, twice as many as back Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has already made one post-election visit to Iowa, and about 20 points ahead of former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

But even as Palin exploded over a few weeks from relative obscurity to a bigger star within the party than its own presidential nominee, Democrats and independents quickly soured on her, she became one of the most divisive figures in politics.

In mid November, Gallup found that only 45 percent of Americans hoped Palin is "a major national political figure for many years to come." About three-quarters of Republicans hoped so, three-quarters of Democrats hoped not, as did 53 percent of independents.

Exit polls also showed that 64 percent of independents viewed Palin as unqualified to be president, with nine of ten Democrats and one in four Republicans agreeing.

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The story does not really say what the center's problem with Palin is or why they do not think she is qualified. If it is lack of experience, she will have four more years of it by the time of the 2012 campaign. She will also have better answers for the hostile media by then too. She does generate enthusiasm that other candidates do not so I think she has a real chance.