PPP Polling: Palin turns negatives into positives

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Polling firm Public Policy Polling has conducted two national surveys and four state polls since Sarah Palin's July 3 announcement that she would resign. PPP is a Democrat polling organization, so we wouldn't expect them to spin their results any other way than to play down any improvement shown by the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate. But we must admit that this stretch gave us a good laugh:

"In national surveys we conducted in May and June Palin's favorability with American voters averaged out to 43/50. In two polls conducted since she announced her resignation it's been 47/45. So there's been a slight improvement on that front."

A slight improvement? Sarah Palin has gone from unfavorably perceived overall to viewed favorably. She has increased her positives by four points and decreased her negatives by 5 points. that's a 9-point turnaround in less than a month, and she managed it while on the receiving end of a barrage of bogus ethics complaints, assaults from the punditocracy and rotten treatment from a hostile press. We call that a major turnaround. Looks like that resigning thing is working out just fine for her.

With football season just around the corner, please forgive us a gridiron metaphor or two. It's still early in the game. And so far, all we have seen is the Palin defense. Just wait until Sarah takes the ball and starts calling the plays.

Update: Townhall.com columnist Larry Elder puts polls in perspective.

Related: In an online poll conducted by NewsMax.com, nearly 80 percent of the respondents indicated that they support a Palin run for the presidency in 2012. Two caveats - it's not a scientific poll, and NewsMax readership is very conservative overall. We already knew that Sarah Palin is the overwhelming choice of conservatives to be the GOP nominee in '12. But we have to admit that the sample size -- 600,000 plus -- is impressive.

- JP