All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

On "Washington Unplugged" Wednesday, Mississippi's Republican Governor, Haley Barbour, told host Bob Schieffer that he expects Sarah Palin "is going to sell a lot of books."

"Whether she intends to run for something else, or where she's headed, I'm not privy to that," he said, noting that he is focused on 2010 as opposed to 2012.

"My wife and I like her," Barbour said of Palin, the former Alaska governor. "She's a heck of a lot smarter than she gets credit for."

Barbour, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, also said Democrats are "whistling past the graveyard" if they don't recognize the lessons from Republican victories in this year's two governors races.

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We're two and a half years away from the 2012 Iowa presidential caucuses but that's not stopping the fevered pitch of speculation about who's up and who's down in the GOP, who might be running and who isn't.

Case in point: Gallup is out with a poll today that shows, "About one in four Republicans and Republican-leaning independents make Mitt Romney their top choice for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, giving him a slight edge over Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee.

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the choice of 14% of Republicans, with much smaller numbers choosing current Govs. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Haley Barbour of Mississippi."

Now, while the blogosphere will light up about this "news," we should all take a deep breath before we start planning for the Obama vs. Romney debates.

Let's go ahead and turn on the time machine and go back and look at some early presidential polling in past years.

Gallup, Aug. 9, 2005: "There are two leading candidates for the GOP nomination at this point (should they end up running, of course): Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Twenty-seven percent of Republicans who are registered to vote pick Giuliani as their nominee, while 24% pick McCain. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice comes in third with 19%, followed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist with 9%, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 4%, and New York Gov. George Pataki and former Virginia Gov. George Allen with 3% each."

Friendly reminder: Giuliani didn't get past January 2008's primaries.

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