Everywhere we look these days Sarah Palin seems to be in the headlines.

Yesterday it was at the National Rifle Association, before that it was speaking to a group of conservative women.

She's so popular that The New York Times this Sunday reveals that merely writing her name into a story headline guarantees web sites more readers than almost any other major figure.

Why has Irish American Sarah Palin struck such a chord?

Because she speaks to the reptile within.

Let me explain.

Top lawyers have long since learned that we think with that 90 per cent of our brain that is the subconscious, which they refer to as the reptillian part.

That's the part we share with every living things, that controls the need to survive, stay safe, keep breathing, pass on our genes.

These lawyers know that while jury members will swear to be rational and impartial they will really decide guilt or innocence based on a reptillian response.

Does finding this doctor guilty of malpractice make me safer? Does letting this person go endanger my family?

Politicians have learned this game too and Republicans are so much better than Democrats at it. No one does it better than Sarah

President Obama appeals to reason and logic. Sarah Palin does the reptile bit.

Remember the "death panels" to describe health care choices for the elderly?

Everyone logically rejected her stance, but she turned millions against health care reform right there by evoking the reptile response that it could damage the family unit.

Equally with immigration, the word 'amnesty', means people may not be safe any more and it is the word that has come to dominate the debate.

Palin is master of the craft and her enthusiastic audiences embrace her.

Much more however, she is able to articulate those fears beneath the surface that Americans feel but will not logically admit to.

That is why she is such a successful politician right now and we should not rule out her out for any position any time soon.

She has got the goods - and the reptile.