Sarah Palin baffles and frustrates fans by quitting bus tour
The former governor's biggest admirers start to question their hero's dedication
Topics: Sarah Palin, War Room, 2008 Elections, 2012 Elections, Politics News
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin exits the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Wednesday, June 1, 2011 in Jersey City, N.J. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)(Credit: Julio Cortez)Sarah Palin quit her cross-country bus tour (or PAC-funded family vacation) about one region into the country. Everyone is so used to her quitting things that no one really noticed. Life went on. Jon Huntsman ran for president. Rick Perry preemptively denied gay rumors.
But Scott Conroy at RealClearPolitics wondered what happened to the tour that was supposed to be heading through the Midwest and Southwest at some point in this rapidly ending month. It seems like Sarah Palin just went home to Alaska, to eat salmon or something.
As Palin enjoys her sojourn to the 49th state, she has not reconnected with key early-state figures like Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and she may have jeopardized whatever political momentum she gained from her recent reemergence in the 2012 discussion. Her political action committee’s website still greets visitors with a stale banner, announcing the nationwide bus tour beginning “[t]his Sunday, May 29th.”
Just give it another month, and she’ll come up with some other scheme to briefly convince everyone that she’s running for president again. She feeds on the attention! (And the PAC donations.) That documentary about how she used to not be so awful before she got famous is going to show in Iowa soon. That’ll definitely mean something.
Palin is probably just putting off the decision to run for president until it’s too late for her to run for president, because, like so many of us, she is undisciplined and lazy. There’s no grand plan, here: just indecision and procrastination.
Her Internet fans are a bit frustrated, though! I read some comments at Conservatives4Palin, where the regulars are split between growing anger and stubborn self-delusion.
PEC111 seems to be grasping that he or she’s been had:
To me the big deal in Scott Conroy’s article is the bus tour. I figure it would have already started by now. With the fishing season getting started and with her trip to the Sudan, it appears to almost have been cancelled. At least if it was going to be in June. Of course she is known for the unpredictable but there is no way this tour is going West Coast, MidWest and South Carolina all this month. I for the first time am having true concerns that she has decided not to run. Don’t blast me too hard.
That said maybe she wanted the tour to better coincide with the movie release.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
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