Palin's Appeal to the GOP Starts to Make Sense

Looking at the map that accompanied last week's Gallup poll showing a weakening trend nationwide in support for the GOP, I've finally figured out why Sarah Palin is so important in their thinking:
Now, this is one of those phony maps that shows Alaska about the same size as Washington state, and twice as big as Hawaii. But if you were to put Alaska there in its real size, our state's importance to the national Republican Party would be more clear.

The area of the other four GOP states - Idaho, Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming, totals 343,770 miles. The area of Alaska totals 663,268.

Our state is about 1.8 times the size of all the other GOP states in the union combined.

Finally, her tremendous appeal and popularity makes sense.