The Presidential Election is barely over and the talk is already turning to 2012. And one of the names being touted by the Republicans as a top contended is Sarah Palin and she is doing things that would point to her being very interested.

She is heading to Georgia this weekend to campaign for Senator Chambliss in his run off election, which takes place this Tuesday.  The McCain/ Palin team won the election in Georgia by a pretty good margin – 52.2% to 47%.  But not as good as Bush did in 2004 when he got 58% of the vote.   Chambiss is in a runoff because neither he nor his opponent, Jim Martin, got the required 50% plus one.

So Chambiss got about 3% less than McCain.  There could be a few reasons why.  The voters of Georgia are not that happy with him, or more of them voter for McCain because they were anti Obama or a combination of both

Whatever, this election will show if Palin does have the power to influence voters.  And if Chambiss does win, it will go a long way to boost her viability as a player on the national scene, or it could show she has very little influence out of her home state.

She is not the only high profile politician making an appearance.  McCain, Huckabee, and Romney have already made appearances and Giuliani is going to be there on Tuesday and on the Democratic side, the President Elect has made a commercial for Martin and both former President Clinton and former Vice President Gore have made appearances for him.  The Republicans who have made, or will make appearances are all considered possible Presidential candidates next time around.  So if Chambliss wins, they will all claim to have been a factor and if he loses, they will be quiet.

It is not only the result of the election that can tell a story, it is who voted for who.  Pain is very popular with the Republican right, but not so with independents. If independents vote for Martin in big numbers, it could mean that Palin had a negative effect.

Meanwhile, she has a state to govern. None of her potential rivals for the 2012 nomination hold elective office. And she has to run for re election in 2010.  What are the citizens of Alaska going to think if their Governor spends more time getting national exposure than taking care of the state issues.

Here we are, four years away from the next Presidential election, already trying to figure out who will be in the race and just a short while ago, we were all complaining that the election process started too early and two years was too long a time.  Amazing.