Palin hype may turn into a massive campaign, but could also be checked by those in the movement wanting solutions over personality

Jim Geraghty at NRO writes today about how National Review cruise guests felt about Sarah Palin:

In my interactions with only a fraction of the 700+ NR cruisegoers — mostly older, mostly well-off, passionate about politics, and many heavily involved with the tea parties — I found about two-thirds wildly enthusiastic about Sarah Palin; you could hear the gasps when Scott Rasmussen predicted she would not be the 2012 Republican nominee. Most of the remaining one-third said that while they personally liked Palin, they didn’t want to see her run in 2012, or anytime soon. An isolated few didn’t seem to like Palin much at all.

His experience on the big boat coheres with what the ConservativeHome panel of 2,200+ self-identified conservatives has shown: politically engaged, upper-middle-class-to-affluent, older conservatives like Sarah a lot. A sizeable number of them peel off, however, when asked who they think is really electable. In that case, Romney pulls the most support.

Geraghty points out, quoting Ralph Reed, that in the end being able to raise a lot of money and put a well-organized ground force out across America is going to matter for a lot - and Palin seems likely to succeed on those fronts.

One element from our survey results that gives us a bit more pause is that Palin only out-stepped Gingrich by 2 percentage points, 23 to 21%, among favorite 2012 contenders. 

Whatever merits Gingrich does or does not have when it comes to pulling off a presidential campaign, he's quite different from Palin in his ability to generate a bunch of interesting ideas. Palin appeals to middle class sentiment, though arguably she has not done much to say how we should improve prospects for the middle America that loves her so much.

Gingrich's wide support in our poll suggests that nearly as many conservatives in America have an appetite for policy and ideas as wave the Sarah banners.