Jonathan Storm: Palin in her element as a guest on Oprah's show

Sarah and Oprah had a chat yesterday, the reality-show politician and the TV mother of us all.

Highlights: Palin said she prays for the misguided father of her grandson, and he's invited for Thanksgiving. She said she was unaware how intriguing her teen daughter's pregnancy "would be for some of the haters." And the audience went "Awww"; when they saw Palin's own little boy, Trig, dressed as a chicken for Halloween.

Winfrey's "world exclusive" was slightly more exciting than watching paint dry, as Palin worked to position herself as just another "normal American woman with a lot on [her] plate," the phrase she used to refer to Winfrey at the end of the lovefest.

She blamed the McCain campaign, the people who helped make her a star, for twisting her comments in last year's presidential race and sending her back again and again to Katie Couric, "the perky one . . . with all due respect," for an unflattering series of interviews.

Palin, who has the best teeth of any politician, once again demonstrated how the TV camera loves her. She was poised and personable, and it's hard not to imagine her with a talk show, though she ducked Winfrey's question not only about that future possibility, but also about her 2012 presidential ambitions.

"You don't need a title to make a difference," she said. "Any ordinary, ordinary American can seize opportunities to let their voice be heard . . . and they can make a difference."

The title of her book, released today, is Going Rogue. Palin got a reported $1.25 million advance, and National Public Radio quoted a senior editor at Publisher's Weekly as estimating that she could earn at least $5 million. You couldn't forget that she was on Oprah to sell it, as the tome, written with the help of journalist Lynn Vincent, a senior writer for the conservative Christian publication World Magazine, filled the screen, lovingly lighted, periodically throughout the show.

There wasn't one question about Palin's politics. But there was an extensive clip of her driving to the gym in her pickup, wearing her cute shorts, and helping her kids make candy apples. Like Chloe Kardashian or Kate Gosselin or the Real Housewives of Wherever, Palin's main claim to fame is that she's just like everybody else, even if she does operate on a more intense plane of reality.

She said it would be untoward to comment on the hottest topic in her life, bad-boy non-son-in-law Levi Johnston: "I don't think a national television show is the place to discuss some of the things that he's doing or saying," but then she discussed them anyway.

"We don't want to mess up the things that he's doing," she said. "We don't want to mess up this gig he's got going, this aspiring, aspiring porn." Johnston, taking as much advantage of his fame as Palin is of hers, posed Thursday for the January issue of Playgirl. "It's a bit heartbreaking to see the road that he is on right now," Palin said.

Palin also said that all of Johnston's unflattering comments about her were based on the "foundational untruth" that he lived with her daughter Bristol and the Palin family.

Egghead politicians have been using television since the '60s to try to connect with voters and demonstrate that they're just plain folks. Richard Nixon said, "Sock it to me," on Laugh-In. Bill Clinton honked on the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. John McCain played Amy Poehler's creepy husband on Saturday Night Live.

Nobody can do it better than Palin, she proved again yesterday, and she'll do it again with the TV grandmother of us all, Barbara Walters, in a 20/20 interview Friday that ABC will also stretch out on Good Morning America today and tomorrow and anywhere else the network thinks it can boost the audience.

Palin didn't sound like a presidential candidate yesterday, and maybe she'll never be one. But if she does run, she'll face a different challenge than those who have gone before her - demonstrating how she's more qualified than the average Joe or Jane.