Sarah Palin's TONIGHT SHOW Appearance Good For Leno Ratings

Jay Leno continues to draw better ratings than the ill-fated Conan O'Brien version of the TONIGHT SHOW. Last night, with the help of Sarah Palin, he pulled in 5 million viewers, besting David Letterman by 1.6 million viewers who had Mitt Romney on. It was rather strange to see these competing GOP hopefuls both on TV last night.

Sarah Palin managed a few good one-liner laughs doing her own version of a monologue as well. You could easily see that she would be well at home hosting her own show. However, it's her greatly oversimplified views of economics and other complex topics that always draw most critics. And even media critics suggest that she continues to remain badly overexposed to public audiences, resulting in a public fatigue factor by many and declining approval numbers, even by many GOP voters. Palin probably didn't advance herself much as a serious political entity last night, yet her fans probably greatly enjoyed her appearance regardless. Then again, Richard Nixon's small comedy guess bit on LAUGH-IN in 1968 did help to soften his image, and helped to set the stage for his 1968 political comeback to win the presidency.

By contrast, Mitt Romney appeared more serious and more substantial in his David Letterman appearance than Sarah Palin who looked like she was attempting to be more entertaining and funny. But no doubt, both Jay Leno and David Letterman were very pleased at this show of political star-power last night, and decent ratings by both prove that audiences were willing to watch.