Much as I hate to admit it, I wasn't aware that it was Palin that coined 'refudiate'. I just understood what the word meant immediately and felt that it probably resided in one of the dusty corners in my vocabulary where I don't poke about much. Like 'mellifluous'. Given that, I'm not surprised that 'refudiate' was Word of the Year.
It's really fucking annoying that the word already exists and is actually 'Repudiate', though