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With speech before tea party activists, Palin once again steps on political stage

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 7, 2010

 

NASHVILLE -- Sarah Palin chose a gathering of tea party activists on Saturday as the backdrop for her first major political speech since accepting the Republican Party's nomination for vice president 18 months ago. With her remarks, greeted with wild enthusiasm here and carried live by all three major cable news networks, Palin moved firmly to reestablish herself as a politician capable of national office.

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During a brief question-and-answer session, when asked about "two words that scare liberals: President Palin," she said nothing, just smiled and looked offstage, where her daughter, Piper, 8, was watching.

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For Palin, who has deflected questions about whether she plans to seek the presidency in 2012, the address in Nashville represented a new high-water mark in visibility. She will also headline upcoming tea party rallies in Searchlight, Nev., and Boston.

By delivering a paid keynote address at a convention other politicians had avoided because of allegations of profiteering, Palin displayed one of the traits that has electrified her anti-establishment followers: a talent for persistently and defiantly flouting the conventional rules of politics.

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Aides said Palin was still tinkering with the speech as her audience was being served a dinner of beef filet and jumbo shrimp. "I'm sure even onstage she'll be editing," her spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, said in an interview.

In the speech, Palin derisively referred to Obama as a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter," but speaking from her notes, she misspoke when she said U.S. policies might discourage those who see "Alaska as a beacon of hope." She presumably meant to say America.

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For Palin, the millions of tea party activists represent not only her political base but also her customer base. They helped make her book a bestseller, put her speeches in high demand and tune in to her Fox News appearances. "Obviously, it's good for her to appeal to these people on a pure commercial view and a pure influence-slash-relevance view," said a Palin adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC, is a fundraising machine, collecting $1.4 million last year, the vast majority of it raised after she resigned as governor.

Palin, by some accounts the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, in her speech took an unusual step of encouraging competitive party primary campaigns.

"Contested primaries aren't civil war," she said. "They're democracy at work, and that's beautiful."

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Full article.