Palin drops to fifth place in GOP 2012 presidential primary race

A February Des Moines Register poll of likely Republican voters in Iowa showed Palins favorable rating at 65 percent,down from 71 percent in a November 2009 survey.

Palin has faded somewhat from the spotlight. She continues to post notes on Facebook that draw thousands of comments,but she rarely seems to break through into the national dialogue.

According to the Washington Post,there is a broad consensus among Republican strategists that the 2008 vice presidential nominee has worn out her welcome even among some GOP voters who have long been her loyal allies.

The most commonly mentioned moment for when Palin jumped the shark politically is her response to the attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords (Democrat-Arizona) in January.

Palins statement,which invoked the loaded term blood libel,created a national controversy and,according to several operatives.

Others traced the decline to 2009 when Palin abruptly announced she would leave the governorship with 18 months remaining in her first term – a move that seemed to suggest,again,a lack of gravitas.

Regardless of the exact timing of the tipping point,Palins slippage has coincided with two other developments that have exacerbated her political problems.

First,Republican primary voters seem focused – to an almost laser-like level – on fiscal issues rather than social ones. The second complicating factor for Palin is the rapid rise of Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann as a potential 2012 candidate.

Palin has,time and again during her tenure in public life,proven prognosticators and pundits wrong. But its impossible to ignore the fact that Palin fatigue appears to have set in among Republicans.