The Stoppable Sarah Palin, Ctd

Jonathan Bernstein asks if Palin can win the nomination without doing "the nuts bolts stuff that most presidential candidates do":

Sarah Palin sits at this point of the campaign with total name recognition and terrific enthusiasm from a not insignificant number of GOP primary and caucus votes.  Those assets may mean that she can wait until longer than usual to start following the normal rules of how one runs for president.  Or, perhaps, she'll try to capture the nomination without doing those things.  Is it possible?  Well, we don't know; no one has ever tried it in the forty years of the modern presidential nomination system.  To be sure, no one knows which campaigning efforts really matter.  What we do know is that elite endorsements and support matter, and I'm pretty skeptical that an FNC-plus-large rallies-plus-TV ads campaign can do the job.

Doug Mataconis notices a poll finding "just 24% who see Palin positively on a personal level translate that to intent to vote for her." They said all this about Obama in 2007. It's as if no one remembers how new media, real base enthusiasm and a restless public can overturn everything.

And who, I ask again, can beat her? That's the other side of this equation. Obama did it against the Clintons. Why couldn't Palin do it against ... no one?