She'd never win the general. Sarah Palin is what Blue Team parents use to scare their children into being good kids. They only bash and bring her up constantly in order to rally their own base. Republicans scare their base with terrorists and Democrats scare theirs with Sarah Palin.
The amount of people who go, 'Well, the elites hate her so much, she MUST be awesome!' really aren't thinking things through with her. She's purely a part of the Red Team vs. Blue Team mentality and will glorify whatever the Red Team does in the end.
Obama would LOVE to run against Sarah Palin. She may whip up some republicans, but in the end she's just a literal and figurative beauty pageant contestant, just more attractive than Romney or Newt. She has no draw beyond sticking it to liberals now and again as she is ideologically bankrupt.
Running Sarah Palin against Obama would whip the Dems into a frenzy equivalent to if the Dems ran Osama Bin Laden against the Reps.
