Palin headlines: Did Iowa speech reveal a uniter or a divider?

Some Sarah Palin watchers -- most notably Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic -- saw hints of a return to the Alaska populist version of Palin in her Iowa tea party speech on Saturday (video here). Friedersdorf writes: "She didn't attack coastal elites or the lame-stream media or liberals (she called out "the far-left" instead). She attacked the corrupt status quo in Washington, D.C., and tried to make President Obama the ultimate symbol of that corruption."

Others strongly disagree with Friedersdorf. Read a roundup of opinions at The Week. In The Washington Post, longtime Palin critic Jonathan Capehart found her as snarky as ever but was less interested in her tone than in the new "game plan" for the country that she outlined; it was largely lacking in specifics, he charges.

In a Facebook post today, Palin defended the tea party movement against coarse language aimed at it Monday by Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa Jr. But the Armed Forces Tea Party today accused Palin of being among politicians using the tea party movement for her personal gain. "The Tea Party is not a movement to sell books or make news for the sake of attention," the group said in a statement that also called on Palin to declare her presidential intentions before linking herself to the tea party.

Meanwhile, Doonesbury author Garry Trudeau is being called sexist for his Sunday comic strip with a reference to Palin's breasts.

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Friday post:

U.S. voters are overwhelmingly against a presidential candidacy by Sarah Palin, according to a new Fox News poll. Not even a majority of tea partiers or evangelicals supports a candidacy.

All in all, most voters -- 74 percent -- think Palin should stay on the sidelines in 2012. Just 20 percent think she should run for president.

The groups most likely to support Palin running are white evangelical Christians (30 percent) and Tea Party members (28 percent). Still, majorities of those groups do not think she should run (62 percent and 66 percent respectively). In addition, 72 percent of conservatives, 71 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of independents think Palin should stay out.

Women (77 percent) are a bit more likely than men (71 percent) to say Palin should sit this one out.

Just among women, Republicans (26 percent) are more likely than independents (24 percent) and Democrats (15 percent) to think Palin should run.

See the full poll results here. Talking Points Memo calls the numbers "brutal" for Palin.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll out today includes similar percentages but also finds that 52 percent of Republicans believe it would be bad for the party if Palin runs.

Dick Cheney is among prominent Republicans not ready to back a Palin candidacy. "I've never gotten around the question of her having left the governorship of Alaska midterm. I've never heard that adequately explained," Cheney said on the Laura Ingraham radio show.

Meanwhile, RealClearPolitics and National Review are claiming to have received advance word on what Palin will say in her Iowa tea party speech Saturday -- and it won't be a candidacy announcement. Palin watcher Scott Conroy at RCP says Palin will attack President Obama as well as establishment Republicans, and she'll even link Texas Gov. Rick Perry, currently the front-running GOP candidate with tea party backing, to "crony capitalism" and the "permanent political class."

Though she will not call Perry out by name, Palin's carefully couched rhetoric will leave the impression that she may soon draw more overt attention to one of the Texan's potential vulnerabilities as a candidate: his history of doling out plum positions and other benefits to generous campaign donors during his nearly 11-year tenure as the nation's longest serving governor.

"Part of what she's going to be addressing is the frustration that many Americans feel that nothing gets done in Washington, D.C.," a Palin source told RealClearPolitics. "We know that we have a debt problem and that we need to rein in government waste, and yet nothing ever gets done. Why is that? What special interests are involved?"

Conservative pundit John Fund, writing at Newsmax, believes Palin will pass on a presidential run this time, endorse Rick Perry anyway and let a few years pass before making a serious run for the presidency. She is relatively young, after all.

She knows she has small children to raise and that her own mistakes and relentless media hostility have damaged her brand as a presidential candidate. But she also knows that attention spans are short, America is full of political careers that have been resurrected and she has lots of time to outwait her critics. ... Sarah Palin may yet have the last political laugh over her doubters.