copyright 2009, The Washington Post WASHINGTON -- With so much attention being paid to Sarah Palin's book tour, the Fix decided to put our political nerd cap on -- okay, fine, we always wear it -- and go inside the numbers of where she's stopping and why. All told, the former Alaska governor is making 31 stops in 25 states. Florida will see the most of Palin (three stops), while she will make two appearances each in Texas, Ohio, Indiana and Idaho. Palin will not stop in the most populous state -- California -- or in another biggie, Illinois. She is sticking largely to Republican-friendly areas, as is clear if you look at how the counties she's visiting voted in the 2008 presidential election. Of the 31 counties, just 11 were carried by President Obama. Obama's best performance in a 'Going Rogue' county came in Hennepin County (Minneapolis), where he won 64 percent of the vote; he took 59 percent in Franklin County (Columbus, Ohio), Cumberland County (Fayetteville, N.C.) and Orange County (Orlando). The remainder of the counties in which the Palin road show will stop range from leaning Republican -- Allen County (Fort Wayne, Ind.), where Palin stopped last week, went for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., with 52 percent -- to strongly favoring the GOP. In five of the counties -- Kootenai (Coeur d'Alene, Idaho), Chaves (Roswell, N.M.), Benton (Richland, Wash.), Sumter (The Villages, Fla.) and Roanoke (Roanoke, Va.), 60 percent or more of the voters chose the McCain-Palin ticket. Of course, from a purely commercial perspective, Palin's focus on Republican-leaning areas makes sense, as it increases the number of books she can sell and the size of the crowds she can draw. (Palin seems to be having little trouble unloading books -- 'Going Rogue' sold 300,000 copies on the day it was released.) Whether there is a subtle political motivation within the tour, is, like many things related to Palin, difficult to divine. Reporters' early reviews of the tour suggested a campaign feel, and in interviews the former governor granted to conservative commentators, she left the door open to a 2012 presidential bid. And yet, Palin's closest advisers insist that a 2012 run is not in her calculus and that seeing the book tour through a purely political lens is a mistake. The Republican Governors Association met last week in Austin, Texas, a gathering where -- for the first time in recent memory -- the GOP had something to celebrate: the victories of governors-elect Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia . While these gatherings always feel like a high school pep rally before the big football game, it's clear that the victories, coupled with the energetic (if unfocused) reaction of the party's base to the Obama administration's policies, have given Republicans more reason for optimism than at any time since the 2004 election. To be clear, that is a relatively low bar. Republicans went into the political wilderness after George W. Bush's reelection as he grew increasingly less popular and it became increasingly clear that the party was either unable or unwilling to break with the chief executive. Polls suggest that the Republican brand remains badly damaged in the eyes of the American public, with most people still trusting Obama far more than Republicans in Congress to solve the major problems of the day. With 2010 right around the corner, below you'll find our rankings of the five Republicans with the most influence in the party's direction. This is not -- and should not be read as -- a list of who is most likely to get the GOP nod in 2012. It's still too early for that kind of handicapping. 5. Mike Huckabee: Huckabee has a golden political opportunity. Poll after poll shows that he emerged from the 2008 campaign with extremely strong positive ratings among Republican voters (and even many independents and Democrats). To take full advantage of that positioning, Huckabee should be building a national fundraising operation, broadening his national staff, and even sounding out operatives in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Instead, the former Arkansas governor appears largely content to continue hosting his radio and television shows and stoking his status as a political-media celebrity. 4. Tim Pawlenty: The perils of running too fast too soon caught up with the Minnesota governor in the run-up to the November elections as he got involved in the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District and then found himself advocating for a smaller-tent Republican Party that might not include Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a moderate. Pawlenty later recanted. As The Post's Dan Balz noted, the governor must be careful to stay true to who he is rather than get caught up in the attempt to out-conservative the rest of the field. 3. Mitt Romney: The former Massachusetts governor is lying low. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Romney's discipline is far superior to that of many of his compatriots; he refused to wade into the Upstate New York special election even as pressure mounted from the conservative base. Romney, who was plagued by his desire to be everything to everyone in 2008, seems to have cured himself of that problem. Expect Romney to emerge as a force on the campaign trail in 2010 and use the momentum gained from what will almost certainly be an aggressive schedule to pivot into a second presidential bid in 2012. 2. Haley Barbour: The McDonnell and Christie victories have elevated Barbour, who was already well regarded within the party, to near-revered status. Barbour's aw-shucks manner belies a savvy political mind, and with 37 gubernatorial races at the forefront of the potential Republican revival in 2010, the Mississippi governor, who chairs the RGA, is in position to emerge as the smartest -- or at least most influential -- man in GOP politics next November. 1. Sarah Palin: After last week, it's impossible to argue about Palin's influence in the party. She can draw big crowds, sell books and command the biggest media stages -- it doesn't get much bigger than Oprah and Barbara Walters. Whether they admit it or not, every establishment Republican wonders about what Palin has planned for 2010 and 2012. We dubbed Palin the 'prime mover' in Republican politics moons ago -- she acts, others react -- and we are sticking by it. 