President Sarah Palin? The 2012 Campaign Begins Today ... Really.

November 12, 2:40 PMPop Culture ExaminerDominic Patten

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               A view of 2012 today on Today

A week after the election, you'd think that Sarah Palin won ... certainly from the victory lap she's taking.

While Barack Obama has only been seen a couple of times, one press conferencewith his economic advisor and a quick visit to the White House, the Alaska Governor is everywhere. Britney Spears has a new potentially career breaking album coming out on November 25, but as airbrushed and aspiring as Britney is, she's got nothing on the exposure Sarah Palin has had in the last week.

Tonight Palin's doing double duty on CNN. Doing her best Tina Fey impression, Palin will be on answering i-Questions from the public with Wolf Blitzer from Miami, where she is making a star turn at the Republican Governor Annual Conference in Miami (Read more about that here), and then later she'll be on with Larry King. The candidate who the campaign kept away from the media has also scheduled a press conference while she's in Miami, where she'll be speaking about the future of the GOP. Palin's also planning to do some campaigning for Georgia Senator Saxy Chambliss who is in a special run-off election on December 2 to keep his seat because the election night result was so tight.

In the America of American Idol instant fame, the ambitious Alaska Governor doesn't intend to leave center stage. 

Check out some past Pop Culture posts on Sarah Palin here

Sarah Palin & the GOP Make a Funny on SNL

The Vice Presidential Debate

Is Sarah Palin the next Tom Eagelton or the next Geena Davis?

After performing her final official campaign duties by standing on stage next to John McCain when the Arizona Senator conceded on November 4, Palin, who wanted to defy tradition and give a speech of her own that night, was supposed to pack up her snowmobile and her brood of children and, after a few days, disappear into the political wilderness. Returning home to America's most northern and largest state, Palin dropped that expectation and played to the crowd and the cameras. As rumors of her exhibiting diva-like behavior and stunning ignorance on the campaign trail started to spread, supposedly from former top level staffers of Presidential candidate John McCain, Palin displayed exactly the sort of metal that allowed her to talk her way into the Republican Vice-Presidential nomination after barely being in office for two years and barely knowing the Senator.

The cameras caught Palin returning to her office and adoring staff in Juneau. She spoke to local TV, wearing a very peppy professional outfit, while cooking mouse chili in her kitchen in Wasilla. Little leaks here and there went out to the media. She spoke to FoxNews' Greta Van Susteren, telling her on camera best friend that she "sometimes, y'know, I consider myself too a feminist - whatever that means!" Palin made news pledging that she wouldn't give u her day job to run for the Senate from Alaska if the convicted Ted Stevens is forced to resign from Congress if, after they finish counting the votes, he does sneak in under the wire and get re-elected. She spoke to Matt Lauer on NBC's Today where she admitted that she found that infamous fiasco of an interview with CBS' Katie Couric "annoying."

Disproving F. Scott Fitzgerald's adage that "there are no second acts in American life," Sarah Palin, who played her critics best when she appeared on Saturday Night Live in mid-October next to the very people who had been mocking her for weeks, has gone from being blamed as the weak minded link in the Republican ticket to the becoming the leading face and voice of the party ... which proves that no matter what you think of Sarah Palin, she's no dummy. If the rumors that Palin preferred shopping to campaigning, that she was brittle to deal with, off message despite her handlers' constant efforts, and that she didn't know that Africa was a continent and what countries were in the North American Free Trade Agreement were meant to kill her national political life, the Governor has recycled that trash into media gold. Shinny media gold that have the GOP conservative base thinking that Palin, who threw a few pelts their way by slagging the much hated CBS, really could be candidate for them in 2012.

After a week of silence, John McCain knows it too. On the Tonight Show last night the top of the ticket maverick told Jay Leno that, regardless of all the anti-Sarah snipping supposedly coming from his former campaign staff, he thought Palin was and is great:

"She inspired people. She still does. And look, I'm -- I couldn't be happier with Sarah Palin. And she's going back to be a great governor, and I think she will play a big role in the future of this country."

Texas Governor Rick Perry told FoxNews today that his Alaska colleague would be welcomed at that Governor's conference in Miami as "like a returning hero."

Having won over John McCain, the GOP conservative base, her fellow GOP Governors and so effectively played the media, the Queen of the North seems to want Barack Obama not to get too comfortable in the Oval Office. She's trying to build an army and movement of her own, kicking off the next Presidential campaign before the lawn signs of the last one have been taken away. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll released today says 49% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Palin, a bit of a dip from recent weeks, while 43% have an unfavorable take on her. It won't be the first such poll, Sarah Palin has just gotten started.

Why do I think a return visit to Saturday Night Live is in the cue cards?