ELECTIONS -- HOW DO THEY WORK?

This has just become sad, and embarrassing to watch:

After a more than two-month hiatus, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is planning to crash the presidential party once again with a heartland-themed re-launch of her "One Nation" bus tour this week in Iowa, according to a Palin fundraising email obtained by CNN.

Palin is bringing her Constitution-draped bus to the Iowa State Fair, just 30 miles south of where the Republican presidential field will take the stage on Thursday for a presidential debate in Ames.

It's not yet clear which day the tour begins, but her surprise arrival in Iowa will happen before the closely watched Ames straw poll. Palin is not on the straw poll ballot....

If she really is planning to make a melodramatic late entry into the presidential race, I can't fathom what she's thinking, because her polling -- including her Fox polling -- is even worse than you imagined:

At the other end of the scale, about 7 voters in 10 think former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would not make a good president....

About 7 out of 10 -- and, actually, that's a slight understatement. Check out the numbers -- the percentage saying she wouldn't make a good president is a whopping 75%, and is above 70% in both genders, in all age groups, across the economic spectrum, and among independents. In fact, a more than 2-to-1 majority of conservatives, a majority of Reopublicans, and even a plurality of teabaggers say this. Read her horrible numbers (click to enlarge):

I love the fact that Fox had to release these numbers for her and then run a disclaimer at the end of the poll story:

Sarah Palin is a Fox News contributor.

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Now, will she draw crowds on this tour? Yeah, I guess. But to me she's become the political equivalent of what the Insane Clown Posse are in music. ICP are despised by every music fan -- except the ones who worship them. The haters are far more numerous than the cultists, but the cultists are enough to keep ICP afloat. The only difference is that the guys in ICP seem self-aware. They know they're not for everybody. Palin has no notion of the limits of her appeal. So maybe ICP is a bad comparison -- maybe she's more like late-model Charlie Sheen.