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Sarah Palin may have electrified the 2008 Republican presidential ticket when she was picked as John McCain's running mate, but just four years later her wattage has dimmed on the Republican stage.

She was snubbed for a coveted speaking role at the Republican National Convention in Tampa even though McCain, the senator from Arizona who surprised many when he selected Alaska's governor, is scheduled to speak. Other speaking spots were doled out to lesser lights like Rick Santorum, who vied unsuccessfully for the nomination this year.

Once the face of the tea party movement, Palin is not among speakers listed for the Tea Party Unity Rally on Sunday. Former presidential candidates Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, and pizza magnate Herman Cain are headlining.

Palin has hit the trail for down-ballot candidates in competitive congressional races, stumping for such political mavericks as Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock and more mainstream politicians like Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Palin's mission: to recreate the same kind of success she had in the 2010 midterm elections when many of the candidates she endorsed won.

Political experts say Palin is also carefully calculating how to wield her burgeoning kingmaker status and star power to position herself for even greater prominence in the party.

"She has a tremendous amount of pull among the people who make up the 800-pound gorilla in the party -- the conservative base of the party," said Keith Appell, a Republican strategist and senior vice president at CRC Public Relations. "She will be a force to be reckoned with for the foreseeable future and beyond."

During this presidential election cycle, Palin has been relegated to the farm leagues, said Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of the book "It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism." It is a role that she slipped into through her own failure to bone up policy matters, he said.

"I think it's really interesting that she has fallen so far in the last year that they have no interest in having her appear at the convention," Ornstein said. "In a lot of ways this political capital she pretty much squandered by becoming a Fox News commentator and going on reality television instead of deepening her knowledge of policy issues. She decided to focus more on making money than on throwing herself into remaining deeply relevant in politics."

"If Romney loses by a big margin there will be a move by center-leaning Republicans to recapture dominance," Ornstein said. "But you're not going to see a lot of conservatives saying 'we were wrong about this.' You're going to have another chapter in this ongoing struggle. There will be a vacuum, Sarah could fill that vacuum."

And if Romney wins Palin will be right there on his heels making sure he sticks to his conservative promises, political experts say. She'll be joined by other conservative voices such as Bachmann, Cain, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina—all vying for dominance of who represents conservatives.

"If Romney and (Paul Ryan) win, the question is do they implement a series of policies that fit the sharp conservative agenda," Ornstein said adding that conservatives will rally to force the Romney administration to keep its promises. "If (the Romney administration) tack to the center, who's going to be leading that charge ... Sarah Palin."

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