THE GOP'S CLASS WAR

CNN has a new poll on the 2012 presidential race. A key finding is that, among Republicans, Romney leads for the party nomination (21%), followed by Palin (18%), Gingrich (15%) and Huckabee (14%). Also, when all respondents are polled, Obama loses to an unnamed Republican candidate, 50%-45% (but this is far less than Clinton's deficit in 1994, and he went on to win in '96).

But here's the result I found most interesting in the raw numbers of the GOP part of the poll (PDF):



(Click to enlarge.)

I guess it's no surprise, but look at the huge difference between the numbers of Palin and Romney among sub-$50,000 and $50,000+ earners: Romney dominates the wealthier respondents (29% to Palin's 12%), while Palin wipes the floor with Romney among the less well-to-do (27% to Romney's 12%). The difference couldn't be starker.

I lopped off the also-rans on this list -- Pawlenty and so on -- but I gave you the top four because I see that Gingrich also does extremely well among sub-$50K voters. Now, why would that be? Do people who make less money think he sounds like a smart guy, while people who make more actually know better?

Well, probably not. Gingrich is #3 among these candidates among all Republican respondents, but he dominates the 65-and-over demographic: Newt gets 26%, followed by Romney at 22%, Huckabee at 19%, and Palin at a distant 13%. So I guess his strong showing with low-income people means he's doing really well among retirees who play golf all day. (And Palin's poor showing with the same age group means, perhaps, that they're still not sure about this women's-suffrage thing.)

And speaking of women, this poll shows Palin doing better among Republican women (20%) than among Republican men (16%). That seems to be a reversal of past polls, which showed that men liked her more than women. But I'd reserve judgment until I saw a poll of all women, not just Republicans. Certainly, though, in the GOP crowd, this suggests that the Mama Grizzly schtick may be working.