The news today is just one more reason I'm an enthusiastic Romney supporter.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has spent the better part of the last five years working to convince conservatives that he is one of them. And, if the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll is right, he’s done it.

Sixty percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents view the potential GOP presidential candidate favorably, while just 21 percent see him in an unfavorable light.

That’s an improvement from where he stood in early January 2008 – in the heart of the GOP primary fight – when 55 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents viewed him favorably and 36 percent felt unfavorably toward him. And back in November 2007, Romney’s favorable score stood at 42 percent while 28 percent felt unfavorably toward him in Post/ABC data.

I remind you of what the 'smart people' were saying in 2007 and 2008. Romney is too liberal and Mormon to win the nomination. Those same smart people were predicting failure for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics as well, which wasn't too much of a feat of prognostication, since SLOC was mired in a bribery scandal and the planning effort was in shambles. Romney is generally acknowledged as being really smart; incandescent as one talk show host put it, but his most admirable quality is his uncanny ability to see a path to success where lesser mortals surrender themselves to despair.

His 'reinvention' was a matter of persistence, planning and execution, qualities that are likely to become even more obvious during the nomination process. You can bet that Mike Huckabee has been watching Romney very closely over the past couple of years, and frankly, that may be the real reason he is choosing discretion over valor where it concerns his own presidential ambitions.

It's an interesting contrast with Sarah Palin

For the first time in Post-ABC News polling, fewer than six in 10 Republicans and GOP-leaning independents see Palin in a favorable light, down from a stratospheric 88 percent in the days after the 2008 Republican National Convention and 70 percent as recently as October.

In one sense, the poll still finds Palin near the top of a list of eight potential contenders for the GOP nomination. The former vice presidential candidate scores a 58 percent favorable rating, close to the 61 percent for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and 60 percent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and better than the 55 percent that onetime House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) received.

But Palin’s unfavorable numbers are significantly higher than they are for any of these possible competitors. Fully 37 percent of all Republicans and GOP-leaning independents now hold a negative view of her, a new high.

In another first, fewer than 50 percent of Republican-leaning independents — 47 percent — hold favorable views of Palin.

I find this fascinating because Sarah Palin had almost the exact same problem Romney had in 2008. No she's not liberal and Mormon, but she did have an image problem nevertheless. The media narrative has been that Palin is ill-educated and perhaps not to bright. Clearly she needed to do something along the lines of what Romney did to realign the narrative in a more personally favorable direction. Inexplicably, Palin only seemed interested in making things worse, with hastily contrived, overly aggressive and rhetorically heavy-handed statements.

The contrast couldn't be more striking. Romney is analytical, plans for success and demonstrates enormous discipline in execution. Palin is charismatic, instinctual and shoots from the hip. Those aren't objective bad characteristics, but the are certainly proving problematic in a campaign for the presidency.