In T-shirt sales, Mitt Romney barely ahead of Sarah Palin

By Judy Kurtz - 02/21/12 08:16 PM ET

Sarah Palin’s not running for president, but up until this month she has been beating GOP front-runner Mitt Romney in a different kind of race.

For the past few months, the ex-Republican vice presidential candidate has been whooping the former Massachusetts governor in one website’s merchandise sales.

CafePress.com, which lets customers design and sell their own clothing items and other merchandise, finds that in December, Palin-inspired gear far outsold items featuring Romney, 80 percent to 20 percent. An average of 137,000 designs are uploaded to the website each week.

Even last month, people were still picking Palin over the White House hopeful, according to the CafePress meter, which the site dubs its “cultural barometer.”

Palin-tagged gifts, such as “You betcha” earrings and a “Going Rogue” 2012 calendar, were still outselling Romney-inspired items, such as “Mitt is Legit” shirts and “Mutts Against Mitt” bumper stickers, 59 percent to 41 percent in January.

It was only this month that Romney has been able to surpass the tough-talking former Alaska governor. According to the site’s stats, so far, Romney is leading February sales over Palin, 56 percent to 44 percent.

But both GOP players still have some work to do to catch up with sales of stuff featuring America’s commander in chief and another presidential contender.

President Obama led the pack of candidates in January, and is edging out Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) in February sales.