Do you doubt that Palin will be the nominee?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I most certainly do.

As I think I've commented previously, Palin's support is strong and loud but very narrow, basically an inch wide and a mile-deep kinda thing.

2008 for the Dems, while not pretty, wasn't especially bloody, largely because that wasn't  'soul searching' Clinton and Obama pretty much agreed on everything and the only thing different was the salesperson and delivery.

The Republicans are essentially divergent warring tribes held together by their dislike to hatred of Obama.

I have the distinct impression the 2012 Republican Primary is going to make the 2008 Dem one look like a Children's Birthday Party.

No, I suspect the GOP nominee will be the winner of Iowa.
The winner of Iowa will be neither Romney nor Palin, but rather someone in the mold of Thune/Pence. 
The winner of Iowa will skip NH, conceding it to Romney.
The winner of Iowa will win SC. 
And the winner of SC will have a field day in the South. 
The race for the 2012 GOP nomination will be over fairly quickly.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

That worked for Huckabee didn't it?

Huck was the failure, not Huck's strategy.  No one who ran in 2008, except for Palin, has a chance at the 2012 nom.

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I really think you'll have a lot of moderate (ie less fruit-cakey) Republicans who know that the religious-right's candidate will do well in IA and SC... however, the likely winner in NH, will probably also win MI which creates the said divide. A moderate Republican (who frankly is who they need to beat Obama) who can win the primaries in NH, MI, CA, NY, FL(?), and across the Mid-West is a much wiser choice than running to the extreme right...

The Rep nominee has to win somewhere outside of the south to get the nomination... Palin might be competition for Romney in the upper plains and the Mountain West, but she will get slaughtered on the coasts and in the mid-West.

If Thune and Pawlenty get into the race, that creates a whole new dynamic.

Romney will not will MI, and only those to the right of Romney have any chance to win any primariesy outside of New England.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

And anyone with TP support will be flattened in the GE... so my suggestion to the Reps - find yourself a moderate (even if quietly so), Mid Westerner... sober moderation can beat Obama... far-right fervour will not.

you really don't understand who makes up the TP - its basically the Reagan coalition.  Someone like Pence/Thune could unite the TP and win a 1980 style landslide and come into power with 65+ GOP Senators. 

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

There is a sizable portion of the tea party "coalition" that was not part of the "Reagan coalition" and has no desire to idolize a has-been neocon who recklessly spent his way to record deficits.

yes, the argument can be made that the non-RINO portion of the GOP + rest of TP + Reagan Dems is bigger than the Reagan coalition

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

For the Dems, the absolute worst nightmare would be Mike Pence, who could unite even the Libertas wing of whatever bird Libertas belongs to.  2nd worse nightmare would be Thune.

Thune and Pence have a chance to outpoll the proverbial generic Republican by the end of the campaign, while all the 2008 contenders would underpoll the proverbial generic Republican.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Absolutely no if Mike Huckabee stays out of the race and even if he's in the race, she has a decent shot.

Consider that hardcore conservatives won in two of the most moderate GOP electorates in the country, Alaska and Delaware.  Moderate Republicans went down in states with extremely moderate GOP electorates.

Nearly every GOP primary electorate, with the exception of New Hampshire, will be more conservative than Alaska and Delaware where Miller and O'Donnell won.  Palin will be in a stronger position than Miller and O'Donnell were while it's unlikely that Romney or any other moderate will be in a stronger position than Castle or Murkowski.  And consider that the GOP electorates in nearly every other state is a lot more conservative than either Alaska or Delaware.

good summary of why Romney has no shot, but dont underestimate GOP primary voters.  They are NOT all out nuts for Palin if someone like Thune or Pence were running against her.