Poll: Palin still darling of conservatives

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Fans of conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck favor a presidential run by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in 2012, poll results indicate.

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, outpaced other GOP leaders on questions about who best represented the party's core values and who Republicans would vote for if the presidential nomination fight were held today, a Washington Post poll published Monday indicated.

Palin, the darling of the Republican party's core constituency, was particularly appealing among the followers of Limbaugh and Beck, two of the most popular conservative talk show hosts nationwide, the poll indicated.

Overall, 18 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents named Palin as the person who best represented the party's core values. Among regular listeners of Limbaugh, Palin was cited by 48 percent, while among Beck's audience, 35 percent named Palin first.

When asked to list possible presidential choices for 2012, Palin lead other Republicans, capturing 17 percent overall, the Post said. However, 45 percent of regular Limbaugh listeners said they would vote for her in a primary, as did about a third of those who catch Beck's program on a regular basis.

The Washington Post nationwide telephone poll was conducted by Nov. 19-23 among 1,306 adults, including additional interviews with randomly selected Republicans and Republican-leaning independents for a GOP sub-sample of 804. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of 3 percentage points; 4 percentage points for the sample of 485 Republicans and 5 percentage points for the sample of 319 GOP-leaning independents.