Sarah Palin tells GOP to get behind insurgents
By BEN SMITH | 9/17/10 10:30 PM EDT
DES MOINES - Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin used an appearance here Friday to put herself firmly at the head of the insurgency overtaking the Republican Party and to demand that the party unite behind her candidates.
“The time for primary debate is over. It’s time for unity now,” Palin said, chiding the “unsuccessful campaigns and deflated political pundits” who – in Alaska and in Delaware – have refused to support their Palin-backed conservative rivals.
Speaking to reporters after the speech, she dismissed Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s attempt to revive her re-election bid through a write-in campaign after losing her primary – a step Murkowski announced about the time Palin spoke - as “a futile effort.”
And Palin imagined herself as the quarterback of a free-flowing Republican offense, fueled by members of Congress, conservative columnists, and even former president George W. Bush - each with an assigned role.
“I’d say ‘DeMint, you’re awesome, we need you down South,” she told the Iowa Republican Party’s annual Ronald Reagan dinner. “Mitt, go West. GW, we need you to raise funds. Kristol, Krauthammer – you gotta go East.”
Palin said former Bush adviser Karl Rove – who has criticized Palin’s Delaware protégé Christine O’Donnell – could come do his penance in Iowa, where he “will see the light and realize that these are just the normal, hardworking, patriot Americans who are saying, 'No. Enough is enough. We want to turn this around and we want to get back to those time-tested truths that are right for America.'”
Palin’s audience were members of Iowa’s Republican establishment, a group key to winning the Iowa caucuses on the path to the 2012 presidential nomination, but her speech made clear that she’s no closer to pursuing a traditional path to the presidency than she was when she stopped taking orders from John McCain’s campaign manager at the end of the 2008 campaign.
Instead, Palin spoke dismissively of "that political playbook to be handed to us from on high from the political elites" to a friendly, but not rapturous, audience of about 1,500 activists who will be at the core of the caucus campaign that begins in earnest next year, and who view the prospect of a Palin presidential bid with equal measures of excitement and skepticism.
Her speech, in which she joked about running for president before counseling an exclusive focus on this year’s midterms, didn’t discourage speculation about her plans. And the White House helped turn the spotlight on her appearance here when White House press secretary Robert Gibbs mused publicly on her Iowa visit.
“It’s normally around this time of year you go to tip your toe in the water, and my guess is, President Obama about this time in 2006 did I think what would be considered a somewhat analogous event,” Gibbs said in his Friday briefing. “My guess is, she's going to dip that toe.”
In an interview with Fox News that aired Friday, Palin made clear she’s considering a run.
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"If the American people were to be ready for someone who is willing to shake it up, and willing to get back to time-tested truths, and help lead our country towards a more prosperous and safe future and if they happen to think I was the one, if it were best for my family and for our country, of course I would give it a shot," she said.
"But I'm not saying that it's me. I know I can certainly make a difference without having a title. I'm having a good time doing exactly that right now."
Palin did not – as some Iowa Republicans had hoped – make much reference to the state’s specific issues or its painstaking caucus process, though she opened with a reference to the state’s beauty and the birthday of its senior senator, Chuck Grassley.
The thrust of her speech, however, was a broad and confrontational rallying call to Republicans across the country.
The media came in for particular scorn, and Palin suggested repeatedly that reporters whose anonymous sources have characterized her falsely were betraying not just her, but also American soldiers who fight to protect the First Amendment.
That is why, Palin said, “I’m so hot on this lamestream media issue.”
“It’s not fair to our troops willing to sacrifice all for your freedom, journalists,” she said.
Palin praised her party for its common sense values, but made few forays into policy, saying only that she would support candidates who are faithful to the Tenth Amendment and to the cause of states’ rights.
And she made clear that she sees her own brand of politics as central to the what she described as “the great Awakening of America.”
“it may take some renegades going rogue to get us there,” she said.
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