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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Sarah Palin has her sights on the White House not Tea Party movement Sarah Palin has given the clearest indication yet that her ambition is to become President of the United States, rather than merely the leader of the radical grassroots Tea Party movement that adores her. The day after her return to national politics with a barnstorming attack on President Obama in a speech in Nashville, Mrs Palin was shown a poll yesterday ranking her the top Republican candidate for 2012 and asked if she would run. “I would,” she said without hesitation. “I would, if I believed that that was the right thing to do for my country and for my family.” In an interview with Fox News, for which she is also a paid analyst, Mrs Palin said that it would be “absurd not to consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country”. She said that she would not “close a door that could perhaps be open to me in the future” and acknowledged that she had started receiving daily political and economic briefings by e-mail from a panel of Washington experts. In oblique reference to a disastrous pre-election interview with CBS in 2008, she added: “I sure as heck better be more astute on these national issues than I was two years ago.” As usual for a potential candidate more than two years before an election there were caveats and deferential nods towards others in her party. Yet her remarks were strikingly direct and seen as a bid to capitalise on her frontrunner status and the fundraising potential that comes with it. The interview was broadcast hours after Mrs Palin’s speech to the first national Tea Party Convention, in which she warned the Republican establishment not to try to marginalise the activists who had come to cheer her on. She trained most of her fire on Mr Obama, caricaturing him as “a law professor at a lectern” rather than a true Commander-in-Chief, admonishing the President for “apologising for America” and asking her audience: “How’s that hopey, changey stuff working out for ya’?” A recent bestseller on the 2008 campaign, containing detailed descriptions of a bewildered Mrs Palin out of her depth in national politics, has helped to fuel speculation that she might forgo a run for the presidency in favour of leading the Tea Party movement, which galvanised opposition to Mr Obama’s health reform plans. There was little sign of such muted ambition from the Palin camp at the weekend. She appeared to rule out leading the Tea Party activists and was careful not to paint them — or herself — into a radical corner. Their movement was “much bigger than a hockey mom from Wasilla or some charismatic guy with a teleprompter”, she said. “I’d hope that the Tea Partiers don’t believe that they need some kind of well-oiled machine.” In her speech on Saturday Mrs Palin mounted a mainstream Republican assault on Mr Obama’s national security credentials, condemning his decision to try Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged Christmas Day airline bomber, in a civilian court. Earlier in the day Mr Obama had paid the Tea Party movement the compliment of a specific mention at the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting in Washington. The right-wing activists who derailed health reform efforts at hundreds of town hall meetings in August should not be allowed to distract the party again, he said. A year ago Mrs Palin was the laughing stock of the Left for a world view that appeared to be based on Alaska’s proximity to Russia. She was blamed by many in the Republican Party for Senator John McCain’s defeat in the presidential election. Since then she has resigned the governorship of Alaska and suffered the indignity of an attempted character assassination by the 19-year-old father of her first grandchild. With each setback her following among conservatives, who thirst for what she calls “common sense solutions” to America’s problems, has only grown and with it her power to influence state and local elections by endorsing radical candidates. From Florida to Arizona, moderate Republicans are having to tack to the right to avoid being outflanked by Mrs Palin’s favourites in primary races. With the confidence of perhaps the most powerful Republican in the country, she said: “Competitive primaries aren’t civil war. They are democracy at work, and that is beautiful.”
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#11. To: christine (#0)
“I would,” she said without hesitation. “I would, if I believed that that was the right thing to do for my country and for my family.” what does madam mukluk have in mind, 49 more bridges to nowhere?
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