Zogby poll: Gov. Palin is person of the Year for 2010

Sarah Palin put the Tea Party on the map
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According to an online survey of 1,950 adults conducted by Zogby International from Dec 8 to Dec. 10, Sarah Palin is the Person of the Year for 2010. The poll, also names former President George W. Bush as the Person of the Decade:

Palin garners a 21% response with President Barack Obama claiming 16% for person of the year, and Glenn Beck tied with Julian Assange with 13%. None of the other seven people listed (General David Petraeus, Mark Zukerberg, Hillary Clinton, Conan O'Brien, Steve Jobs, LeBron James, Robert Gates) in the survey pull in more than 6%.

Democrats mostly choose President Obama (33%) and Assange (19%), while Republicans go for Palin (39%) and Beck (25%), and independents split their votes between Palin (17%), Beck (16%) and Assange (15%). President Obama only pulled 8% of the Independent vote.

Former President George W. Bush pulls in 44% of the respondents for Person of the Decade. President Obama comes in second with 20% and Osama Bin Laden garners 11%.

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Meanwhile, even liberal Taylor Marsh, in that familiar condescending manner, opines that TIME magazine should have chosen Sarah Palin over Mark Zuckerberg for its Person of the Year:

"The fact remains that Sarah Palin put the Tea Party on the map and pushed their presence and validated them through victory after victory. Considering they’ll own the House come January, bringing into Washington the most conservative body we’ve seen in decades, which has also changed the behavior of establishment Republicans because of the Tea Party rise, Sarah Palin would have been a raucously interesting selection."

- JP

Zogby: Obama 41%, Palin 40%, +/- 2.2%

President's job approval lowest ever
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The findings of a new Zogby Poll indicate that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are statistically tied in a hypothetical match up between the president (41 percent) and the former vice presidential candidate (40 percent). Just a single percentage point separates the two, and that difference is within the survey's 2.2 percent (plus or minus) margin of sampling error.

Results of the poll also indicate that President Obama's job approval rating has declined to 39 percent, the lowest point since he became president. Even worse for the president, his job approval rating among Democrats has dropped from 78 percent just a week ago to 72 oercent in this latest poll, which was conducted Nov. 19-22.

Zogby also found that the percentage of likely voters who say the U.S. is on the wrong track is now at the highest point of the Obama presidency at 69 percent.

- JP

Zogby Poll: Sarah Palin is GOP's top choice for president

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The results of a new Zogby Poll commissioned by Newsmax indicate that Sarah Palin now leads her prospective GOP rivals as the Republican Party's preferred candidate for president:

The exclusive Newsmax Media-Zogby poll released Thursday asked likely GOP voters: "If the Republican primary for president of the United States were held today... for whom would you vote?"

The poll gave voters a selection of top tier potential candidates as well as some dark horses, the list included Scott Brown, Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, David Petraeus, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney.

Despite the size and diversity of the field, Palin grabbed a solid 22.2 percent to take the lead with former Massachusetts Gov. Romney close behind with 19.4 percent.

Also making a strong showing was former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich with 12 percent, followed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 11 percent.

A survey taken in early December by Opinion Research for CNN found Huckabee leading the Republican field of likely presidential candidates, with gov. Palin in second place.

Newsmax's David Patten attributes Sarah Palin's strong showing in the Zogby poll to her success at year's end with her book Going Rogue and her new job as a Fox News contributer as factors which are having a positive impact on her political standing. 

Democrat pollster Doug Schoen says the findings by Zogby contradict claims made by many analysts that Gov. Palin had killed her political career by resigning as Alaska's governor nearly six months ago:

"It suggests to me that reports of her political death are exaggerated," political strategist and Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen tells Newsmax. "In American political life, politicians have not only second and third lives, they have nine lives. And Sarah Palin is on her third or fourth life."

Patten says that the poll shows that, among members of her own party, Sarah Palin has overcome the many media attacks against her and continues to be a powerful political force. U.S. Congressman Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Newsmax that he's not surprised by Gov. Palin's strength in the new poll, but he can understand that "a few networks" might find the results surprising:

McCarthy says Palin has become the voice of an electorate increasingly frustrated with federal governance.

"She has the common sense to go out, to listen, to talk, to tell exactly how she feels from the heart," McCarthy tells Newsmax. "They can try to go out there and say whatever they want about her but she's really the voice of the people. She raises a family, she understands those challenges. … I think that's what America is looking for.

"America is not looking for a party," McCarthy says. "They're looking for a leader and those who will help change Washington."

Read the full Newsmax report here.

- JP