Okay, so most likely Cruz isn't going to be the next President, so Palin most likely won't be nominated for Interior Secretary, so this isn't a constructive conversation, but to respond, I wholeheartedly disagree. I think that a GOP senate would confirm her, and I don't believe it would be a party line vote. John Kerry got unanimous confirmation for Secretary of State, despite his deeply polarizing political views. They're not going to put up fight over the Interior Secretary.
Why not? They can use her polarizing nature as a wedge issue to force Cruz to waste political capital. She's an easy target and hard to defend. Why would Cruz want such a wild card in his cabinet to begin with?
And regarding McConnell quietly asking President Cruz to not nominate her. Cruz doesn't listen to McConnell when he's a first term junior senator. You think he'll start listening when he's President of the United States? There is nobody in the senate who is more willing to stick to their guns than Ted Cruz.
If McConnell get to decide who gets confirmed or not it won't matter if Cruz wants to "stick to his guns". It will be clear that nobody wants this and Cruz won't waste his political capital on something so stupid and useless to begin with. Although being a radical Cruz is much more politically savvy then a lot of people think.