Other people have crossed the border from politics to media to very good effect — George Stephanopoulos, Patrick Buchanan and Chris Matthews, to name a few — but the transition was far more gradual. Ms. Palin turned on a dime and was a ratings sensation from the word go: her first paid appearance, as a commentator on “The O’Reilly Factor” on Jan. 12, was good for an extra million viewers.

Her appeal doesn’t stop at the red states. When Ms. Palin stopped by to chat with Oprah Winfrey — not exactly friendly territory — the show achieved its biggest ratings in two years.

Ms. Palin didn’t go on the show to run for president as much as to become the next Oprah. And it seems to be working.

So what are the rest of us missing?

Back in September 2008, when she was unveiled in St. Paul during the Republican convention, a longtime political reporter told me that her appeal would burn off over time. I wondered about that. I’m from Minnesota, which is sometimes considered the southernmost tip of Alaska, and her way of speaking in credulous golly-gee may have been off-putting to some, but there is a kind of authenticity there that no image handler could conjure.

In Ms. Palin’s America, everyone’s got bootstraps; they just need to have the gumption to find them. And her version is full of plain old folks spending a lot of time overcoming a great deal, including a government that she posits usually intends to do them harm. “America is exceptional! It’s not her politicians that make her so; it’s her everyday people and the values Americans hold so dear,” she said on her Facebook page, which, by the way, has 1.5 million fans.

She’s also imported the political trick of coming from the outside and ruling from the center. When she sets down the ear piece and leaves the studio lights, even the way she says the word “media” in her speeches — “MEE-dee-uh” — makes it sound like something yucky and foul, a swamp to be avoided at all costs. Unless, of course, you are promoting a show, a book or a cause.

Many observers thought her unwillingness to serve out her term would be fatal to her ambitions, but the fact that governance did not suit her — she resigned as governor back in July — has become a kind of credential.