Palin lays groundwork for 2012 presidential bid

By Stephen Foley



Alaska Governor and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin attends an autism awareness fundraiser in Purchase, New York

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Sarah Palin, John McCain's polarising running-mate in his doomed presidential bid, is discreetly putting down markers for a 2012 run of her own, in a low-key tour of the US this week.


The Alaska Governor joined an autism charity's fundraising march in upstate New York yesterday, one of a number of small-scale events designed to cast her as a serious political figure and erase memories of the national lampooning she suffered as the Republican presidential campaign fell apart last year.

As well as associating herself with soft causes, she will reprise a key campaign theme, scattering the week with meetings to discuss energy independence and press for more oil drilling.

At one event in Auburn, New York, over the weekend, Palin was greeted by the crowd with a revised version of her campaign-trail mantra of "Drill, baby, drill". As she arrived on the podium, the 20,000-strong audience erupted in a chant of "Run, Sarah, run."

While Ms Palin has taken time out from national political campaigning to allow the dust to settle on her disastrous vice-presidential bid, she has put in place some of the early infrastructure needed for a 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama. In January, she formed a political action committee to raise funds for candidates committed to energy independence and "conservative principles".

And she has continued to be a rallying figure for the Republican base, which Mr McCain had hoped to energise with his pick of running-mate and which is likely to form the core of any appeal to primary voters by Ms Palin in three years time.

A speech in Anchorage last week, introducing Michael Reagan, son of the late president Ronald Reagan, who is now a talk radio host, was classic Palin and has earned her a second life on the internet.

She praised Mr Reagan for his willingness "to screw the political correctness that some would expect him to try to adhere to" and condemned "self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington, and the liberal media".

Ms Palin is being accompanied on the week-long tour of the lower states by her husband, Todd, her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, and other members of her family, but only two political aides.

Members of the media are not being alerted to any of the events.

Please god let her be the Nominee

Yep she needs to run, I will support that. It will make it a shoe in for the other side to win....lol

are there people that actually support her?

I personally don't care for the woman but I do think all politicians should do this

"She praised Mr Reagan for his willingness "to screw the political correctness that some would expect him to try to adhere to" and condemned "self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington, and the liberal media".


politicians try to please the wrong people IMO.

She is such a joke.

It was Ronnie who approved HMO's Medical insurance with emphasis on money, rather than actual health care

I was speaking of a president doing what he/she thinks is best for the people...not what's best for the politicians

Yes.

exactly

if anything i always get to enjoy a good solid laugh when i see the bumper sticker

She is expected to pull in a good 25% of the vote. Ironicly that is the same% of people who are under some type of mental care in this country.

I guess that's one way Obama will assure himself a second term. Palin's a moron, she has no charisma, she's not smart, she probably cost McCain more votes than she brought him. But she's experienced in foreign relations cause she can see Russia....

Only palin is arrogant enough to think she has a chance after the circus which was her campaign. And low key? please, no one is going to forget the things that came out of her mouth. Not in 2012 or beyond. I'd love for her to run, I hadn't laughed at the last compaign when Bush ran, that wasn't even funny, and turned out to be worse, but she was hysterical.

So go for it Palin, make me laugh.

Sarah is a BIG no no in my books. She is a joke....not even a funny one.
I can't stand her for many reasons. A big one for me is she kills wolves by ambush......................FROM THE AIR!!!!!!!


kat

"Sarah Palin is all over the news lately. She told Matt Lauer on the 'Today' show that, yes, the rumors were true, on election night she did want to deliver her own concession speech and she was disappointed that she couldn't. Well, she shouldn't feel bad. Wait till 2012. Deliver it then." --Jay Leno

she won't make it to the primaries. But I take this article as I would ant other site....The Independent?

Sarah Palin is asked about her belief that the earth is only 6000 years old and that man and dinosaurs co-existed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cqvP1K2xV0&feature=related

lol hon...she won't get far with the whole election prcess...she is the Pelosi on the other party

The LA Times reports:

Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.

After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.

Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska.

The idea of a "young Earth" -- that God created the Earth about 6,000 years ago, and dinosaurs and humans coexisted early on -- is a popular strain of creationism.

Though in her race for governor she called for faith-based "intelligent design" to be taught along with evolution in Alaska's schools, Gov. Palin has not sought to require it, state educators say.


In a widely-circulated interview, Matt Damon said of Palin, "I need to know if she really think that dinosaurs were here 4000 years ago. I want to know that, I really do. Because she's gonna have the nuclear codes."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/28/palin-claimed-dinosaurs-a_n_130012.html