Bernstein pushes back:
Is the Sage of Wasilla winning? Is she "getting away with it"? Well, that's where it gets interesting. For her troubles, Palin is massively unpopular. Pollster.com has her at favorable/unfavorable averages at 35/52...that's pretty awful. For a comparison, Romney is at 32/33; Obama is currently at 52/40. What Sarah Palin has done is to retain the extremely strong support of a fairly small number of Americans. But that's probably something she would have even if she was giving interviews! Meanwhile, her media strategy is obviously doing an absolutely terrible job of selling her to anyone outside that small group. Granted, in my view the product is at least as much of the problem as is the sales campaign, but then again all anyone is asking here is whether she's liked (as opposed to the much tougher sell of whether one would want her as president), and she's failing on that one, too. It doesn't mean that she could never reach the presidency, if that's what she wants, but it's hard for me at least to see that the press strategy is helping her get there.