15 Oct, Friday, CNN Politics: Political Ticker: Palin to once again help kick off Tea Party Express tour

Palin to once again help kick off Tea Party Express tour

By:
CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser


(CNN) - She headlined the kickoff event at the Tea Party Express's last cross-country caravan, and now Sarah Palin is going to help kick off the group's new bus tour.

The organization announced Thursday that the former Alaska governor and the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee will join the launch of tour, which they call the "Tea Party Express: Liberty At The Ballot Box" national tour, which starts Monday at a rally in Reno, Nevada.

The first two days of the tour are in Nevada, home state to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who's fighting for his political life this year as he bids for a fifth term. Tea Party Express targeted Reid in its previous tours.


In March, Palin was the keynote speaker at a rally in Reid's hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, that kicked off the Tea Party Express' third cross-country tour.

Sharron Angle, who the Tea Party Express is supporting and assisting in her race against Reid, will not be at the kickoff event in Reno. The reason: The Tea Party Express bus tour is being funded by the organization's independent expenditure wing, and federal candidates are prevented by law from coordinating with independent expenditure groups.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is considering a bid for 2012, will speak at a rally on October 21 when the Tea Party Express tour rolls through San Diego. The cross-country caravan is scheduled to end in New Hampshire on November 1, the day before the midterm elections.

The Tea Party Express launched its first tour in late August of last year. That trip ended in nation's capital as part of a large anti-tax "March on D.C." event that attracted Tea Party activists from across the country. The group staged a second bus tour last autumn.

Earlier this year, Tea Party Express, which is based in Sacramento, California, also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads to help Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown in Massachusetts, who upset Democrat Martha Coakley in a January special election to fill the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat.

This spring, the organization helped then little-known Angle win the Republican primary in Nevada, endorsing her and spending about a half-million dollars on ads. The Tea Party Express also successfully backed other Senate candidates, including Mike Lee in Utah, Joe Miller in Alaska, and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware.

But not all the news for the Tea Party Express has been positive. This summer, the National Tea Party Federation, which seeks to represent the Tea Party political movement around the country, expelled the Tea Party Express because of an inflammatory blog post one of its leaders, Mark Williams, wrote responding to criticism of the Tea Party movement from the NAACP. The story made national headlines and Williams later stepped down as spokesman for Tea Party Express.