• Palin's East Coast swing ends

    By NBC's Shawna Thomas and Alex Moe

    PORTSMOUTH, NH -- It isn't over, but it’s over for now. 

    Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made one last unconventional stop on her way to the airport this morning to fly home to Alaska. Her caravan of SUVs and reporters' cars stopped at the Golden Egg, a diner here that is used to candidates dropping by, but not completely unexpectedly. (One waitress said they would’ve had all their regulars waiting if they had known she was coming.) 

    But there was one person who knew Palin was showing up here: rookie New Hampshire GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, whom Palin endorsed last year. 
     
    Ayotte, the senator's husband, and Palin chit-chatted about their children and Alaska travels over coffee as Palin’s parents sat at a table nearby and ate breakfast. Piper was also in tow, eating a sticky bun.

    When their chat turned to politics, they lowered their voices, so the microphone only picked up snippets like “55," “the longer we put it off," "Paul Ryan," and "Medicare."  The political tone of the stops in New Hampshire -- coupled with this morning’s breakfast and last night’s clambake of who’s who in conservative New Hampshire -- keeps everybody interested in speculating whether or not she will run for president. 
     
    That intrigue propelled her to the biggest headline on the front page of the New Hampshire Union Leader this morning, literally shoving Mitt Romney’s presidential announcement yesterday aside. 
     
    Palin dropped a few more hints about the next leg of the tour before she took off to the airport.  “I don't know if in the next week or two, we have to get back and regroup and figure out schedules and who next can hop on the bus with us - we will figure all that out,” Palin said. 

    When pressed about which part of the country she may visit next she said, “Midwest and then eventually West... I'd love to do South, too. I just heard from [South Carolina Gov.] Nikki Haley the other day, and I'd love for us to hit her state, too. She is great.”

    So it seems like Palin’s tour is not only about seeing historic sites and handing out pocket Constitutions, but also checking in on her team of Mama Grizzlies. 

    Perhaps another clue to where the Liberty Mystery tour may be headed next.

  • Palin fires shot at Romney at Bunker Hill

    By NBC's Shawna Thomas, Alex Moe, and Mark Murray

    In remarks made at Bunker Hill in Massachusetts -- of all places -- Sarah Palin fired a shot at Mitt Romney over the health-care mandate that Romney signed into law in the state in 2006.

    The remarks came just before Romney formally announces his presidential bid in nearby New Hampshire, which Palin also plans to visit later today.

    "In my opinion, any mandate coming from government is not a good thing, so obviously ... there will be more the explanation coming from former governor, Romney, on his support for government mandates," Palin told reporters today.

    When a reporter followed up that Romney has distinguished his state mandate from the federal one President Obama signed into law in 2010, Palin responded that even state mandates are problematic.

    "He makes a good argument there that it does. States rights and authority and responsibility allowed in our states makes more sense than a big centralized government telling us what to do," she said.

    "However, even on a state level and even a local level, mandates coming from a governing body, it's tough for a lot of us independent Americans to accept, because we have great faith in the private sectors and our own families ... and our own businessmen and women making decisions for ourselves. Not any level of government telling us what to do."

  • Palin makes stop at Washington's Mount Vernon

    By NBC's Shawna Thomas

    Sarah Palin and her family rolled up to historic Mount Vernon this morning to tour George Washington's mansion. Palin got the VIP treatment, as she was whisked in through a back entrance and walking the grounds with a VIP tour guide.

    As she, her parents, Todd, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and staffers made their way through the grounds, other tourists gaped at the family and took pictures. Palin shook hands and laughed. At one point, NBC News asked her if she was being encouraged to run by the people she's met. Palin responded, "We're being encouraged to keep spreading the message."

    Around 11:30 am ET, the family walked up to George Washington's home to speak with people in period costume and take pictures with other visitors before touring the inside of the home.

    Only snippets of Palin's conversation could be heard while on the mansion grounds like, "Medicare" and "We love you."

    The family went from the house to Washington's tomb, and then they boarded their bus to get back on the road.

    Melissa Wood, media relations manager at Mount Vernon said she was never contacted directly by the Palin organization. She was told by another staff member on Sunday afternoon that the former vice presidential nominee could show up around 11:00 am and made a plan on how to wrangle the media based on relatively little information.

    The family's next stop, reportedly, is at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, followed by Gettysburg.

  • Rolling Thunder: Sarah Palin not invited

    By Andrea Mitchell and Lauren Stephenson, NBC News

    WASHINGTON — One day after Sarah Palin announced her bus tour, a group sponsoring a Memorial Day weekend event she plans to attend said they never invited her.

    "She wasn't invited. We heard yesterday she came out with a press release she was coming to Rolling Thunder," Ted Shpak, national legislative director of Rolling Thunder, told "Andrea Mitchell Reports." Shpak is one of three members of Rolling Thunder's current leadership who says he had no idea Palin was coming until it was posted on her website.

    On Thursday, the former governor of Alaska and potential GOP presidential candidate announced her bus tour on her political action committee's website, Sarahpac.com.  The tour is to begin in Washington, D.C., where Palin plans to participate in the Sunday motorcycle rally sponsored by Rolling Thunder Inc., a group that raises awareness of prisoners of war and those missing in action.

    "She's not invited to speak. We're not endorsing her ... (but) we can't stop her from coming to ride, if she wants to ride," Shpak continued.

    Organizers of Rolling Thunder say their guest speakers are Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

    Palin's representatives say they were invited to Rolling Thunder - by a former board member who is emceeing the event.

    Mike DePaulo tells NBC News he had a standing offer for her to ride with them from the Pentagon across the bridge to D.C. - and that he got a call from what he called "the Palin campaign" on Wednesday to see if they could take him up on it.  He coordinated it with a friend of his, Joe Fields, of the Alaska Veterans' Advisory Council, who had worked with Palin when she was governor.

    A spokeswoman for Rolling Thunder says they frequently invite celebrity guests to ride with them.  

    DePaulo says he has a permit for the Palin bus to be parked on Henry Bacon Drive near the Lincoln Memorial.  He acknowledges he didnt tell current leaders of the organization that she was coming, since they were already on the road.

    When asked if Palin's bus will be participating in the event, Shpak of Rolling Thunder Inc. responded, "Absolutely not."

    Shpak says Palin's attendance "is a big distraction" and that his "phone has been ringing off the hook" ever since she announced her intention to attend the event.

    "We're not political. This is not a political event ... Maybe she's coming because she knows we have a half a million people in town and thinking she can start her [campaign]?" stated Shpak.

    "We're taking care of our issues and that's why we're here."

     

  • FOX not changing Palin's status at network

    By Mark Murray

    A sign that FOX News isn't taking the 2012 Palin story seriously, at least so far -- it isn't suspending her the same way it did for paid contributors Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum when they were mulling presidential bids. FOX later terminated Gingrich's and Santorum's contracts when they jumped into the 2012 race.

    “We are not changing Sarah Palin’s status,” said Bill Shine, FOX News' executive vice president for programming, in a statement to NBC News.

  • Palin to embark on bus tour this weekend

    Sarah Palin announced an East Coast bus tour for Memorial Day Weekend, raising questions about whether it's a prelude to a presidential run. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    By NBC's Andrea Mitchell and Mark Murray

    First came the news that Sarah Palin purchased a home in Arizona. Then came word of the glowing two-hour documentary about her record as Alaska governor. And then it was reported that she re-hired two key aides.

    Now here's another sign Palin might be eyeing a White House bid: She's embarking on a bus tour this weekend.

    A Palin spokesperson tells NBC News:

    “Starting this weekend Sarah Palin will embark on a one nation tour of historical sites that were key to the formation survival and growth of the United States of America. The tour will originate in Washington DC. and will proceed north up the East Coast."

    Of course, this doesn't mean she eventually will run. But it certainly stokes speculation about her intentions. 

  • Palin praises Ferraro

    By Vaughn Ververs

    Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the second woman to run on a national ticket, reacted to the death of Geraldine Ferraro in a Facebook posting, calling her an "amazing woman who dedicated her life to public service."  Although the two women could not be further apart politically, they share a unique experience.  Ferraro was often supportive of Palin during the 2008 campaign even if she didn't agree with her policy positions.  Here's Palin's Facebook post:

    "My family and I would like to express our sincere condolences to the family of Geraldine Ferraro. When I had the honor of working alongside Geraldine on election night last year, we both discussed the role of women in politics and our excited expectation that someday that final glass ceiling would be shattered by the election of a woman president. She was an amazing woman who dedicated her life to public service as a teacher, prosecutor, Congresswoman, and Vice Presidential candidate. She broke one huge barrier and then went on to break many more. The world will miss her. May she rest in peace and may her example of hard work and dedication to America continue to inspire all women."

    NBC's Domenico Montanaro shares his thoughts on the life and career of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.

  • Another Gingrich announcement; Ariz. as Palin's home base?

    By Domenico Montanaro, Deputy Political Editor, NBC News

    Newt Gingrich says he plans a late May “announcement” at noon in front of Independence Hall, CNN reports. He says he’s leaning toward a yes.

    But after even he admitted his initial roll-out was uneven, there's a problem with Independence Hall -- it's currently undergoing a historical restoration and won't be finished by late May. The restoration only started a few months ago and will last at least a year and a half. That might not exactly yield the kind of pictures Team Gingrich would want.

    Palin campaign would be based in Arizona
    Sarah Palin     was criticized for that "Target Map" in the aftermath of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. Well, a Palin source tells Politico if she runs she’ll base her campaign in Scottsdale, Arizona, to be near daughter Bristol, who recently moved there. Arizona is also the home state of her 2008 running mate, John McCain.

    Ben Smith notes: "Basing a campaign there would be a provocative rejection of any lingering political cost from those who connect her harsh rhetoric and Gabrielle Giffords' shooting -- a traditional refusal to retreat. It's also the core of the politically contested, fast-growing new West."

    (Hat tips: Taegan Goddard.)

  • Fake Palin shows up at CPAC, confusing some onlookers

    A Sarah Palin impersonator walked the halls at CPAC, confusing throngs of onlookers.

    From NBC's Kevin Hurd
    Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin won't show up at CPAC this year.

    But the fake Sarah Palin did.

    A woman, who looked and dressed like the famous Republican, started walking around and doing interviews. In fact, she began drawing a crowd. People requested pictures, asked questions, and expressed their support for her.

    Mumbles of mixed reactions buzzed through the crowd about her legitimacy. One person said, "That's not the real Palin," while another said, "You bet. That is real, legitimate Palin." Another mentioned checking her latest Twitter status to verify whether or not it was her.

    But a staff member escorting the woman around confirmed that, despite her similarity, this was not the real former governor.

  • What is 'blood libel'?

    Within minutes of the release of Sarah Palin’s video response to the Tucson shootings, the Web ignited with furious debate about the former Alaska governor’s use of the phrase “blood libel” to describe connections drawn between Arizona shooter Jared Loughner and conservatives who have used guns and violence as metaphors for political activism.

    In a nearly eight-minute long message, Palin said that “journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.”

    The intensely controversial nature of the term stems from its origins in hundreds of years of anti-Semitic rhetoric – a detail made no less striking by the fact that Loughner’s target, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, is her state’s first Jewish congresswoman.

    According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, the term refers to:

    The accusation that Jews murder non-Jews to obtain blood for Passover rituals. This accusation was repeated in many places in the Middle Ages and was the cause of anti-Jewish riots and massacres. It was a regular motif in anti-Semitic propaganda until the Second World War.

    The first recorded accusation of Jews murdering Christian children appears to have been in 1144 A.D., when -- according to Thomas of Monmouth, a monk – a English boy’s murder by crucifixion was blamed on Jews in Norwich.

    The myth – which became pervasive in medieval times and beyond – evolved into a popular superstition that Jews harvest the blood of Christian children to make Passover matzoh or to use for other ceremonies.

    Less than 4 hours after the release of the video, Wikipedia.org's entry on “blood libel” had been updated to note Palin's application of the phrase to the aftermath of the Tucson shootings.

    Despite the bright spotlight pointed at Palin’s uttering of the flashpoint expression, hers was not the first usage of the phrase by a conservative in the wake of the Arizona shootings. Several other commentators -- all political conservatives -- invoked “blood libel” in print yesterday.

    In an op-ed about the shootings in the Wall Street Journal on January 11, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds asked “Where is the decency in blood libel?” Human Events staff writer John Hayward urged the “Right to fight back” against blame for the attacks in a piece titled “The Giffords Blood Libel Will Fail; The Left rides a horse that is dying beneath them.”

    And, on the same day, the editorial page of the Washington Examiner slammed New York Times columnist Paul Krugman for placing “the blood libel of blame for the Tucson murders squarely on the shoulders of the crowds at the McCain-Palin rallies and right-wing extremism."

    *** UPDATE *** Several national Jewish organizations have responded to Palin's use of the phrase.

    Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said that it was "inappropriate at the outset to blame Sarah Palin and others for causing this tragedy," but added that "we wish that Palin had not invoked the phrase 'blood libel' in reference to the actions of journalists and pundits in placing blame for the shooting in Tucson on others."

    "While the term 'blood libel' has become part of the English parlance to refer to someone being falsely accused, we wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history," he said.

    And Simon Greer, the president of Jewish Funds for Justice, called Palin's use of the term "totally out-of-line."

    "The term “blood libel” is not a synonym for 'false accusation,' he said. "It refers to a specific falsehood perpetuated by Christians about Jews for centuries, a falsehood that motivated a good deal of anti-Jewish violence and discrimination."

  • Contrasting Obama and Palin on civility in politics

    By now, many have already digested and analyzed Sarah Palin's video response to Saturday's shooting in Arizona.

    What's particularly striking about Palin's response is how it contrasts with President Obama's view on civility in politics.

    There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those ‘calm days’ when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren't designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders' genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

    Yet here's Obama's view, articulated in his University of Michigan commencement address last spring:

    But we can’t expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down. You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it. You can question somebody’s views and their judgment without questioning their motives or their patriotism... Now, we’ve seen this kind of politics in the past. It’s been practiced by both fringes of the ideological spectrum, by the left and the right, since our nation’s birth. But it’s starting to creep into the center of our discourse. And the problem with it is not the hurt feelings or the bruised egos of the public officials who are criticized. Remember, they signed up for it... The problem is that this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. It prevents learning -- since, after all, why should we listen to a ‘fascist,’ or a ‘socialist,’ or a ‘right-wing nut,’ or a left-wing nut’?"

  • 2012: Palin on defense

    GIULIANI: “Unless the dominant issue in the 2012 Republican primaries is blizzard management, then -- an area in which Mr. Giuliani excelled and which might win him a few votes in New York and Minnesota -- it is hard to see how a presidential bid in 2012 would amount to much more than a vanity candidacy, if Mr. Giuliani chooses to mount one at all,” the New York Times says.

    HUCKABEE: A new Gallup poll finds that Mike Huckabee “has the highest net favorable score among Republicans nationwide in a field of potential GOP candidates for 2012, while former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the most recognized. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are also widely recognized by Republicans, and have favorability numbers similar to Palin's.”

    Huckabee will appear in Tennessee to “speak at a fundraising dinner for the anti-abortion movement on college campuses at the Knoxville Convention Center on Feb. 14,” Knox News writes.

    PALIN: “An aide to Sarah Palin is defending the former Alaska governor's controversial campaign target map, saying the circles over certain districts were never meant to be gun sights. However, Palin herself described the symbol as a ‘bullseye,’” the Washington Post writes.

    “Sarah Palin is charging that President Barack Obama is ‘hell-bent on weakening America’ by pushing to raise the national debt ceiling,’ Politico says. Appearing Friday on Laura Ingraham’s radio show, Palin “accused the president of ‘purposefully’ trying to harm the country and acknowledged that her stinging comments might ‘get some people all wee-weed up again.’”

    PAWLENTY: “In what's a tricky issue right now, Tim Pawlenty tells the National Review if the debt ceiling has to be raised, it has to be raised, but only if it has to be raised,” GOP 12 writes. “I think they should exhaust the possibility of cuts before raising the debt ceiling again,” Pawlenty said in the interview.

    The former governor writes in his new book that he watches hockey fights to relax, Politico notes. “Pawlenty has often used hockey metaphors during his tenure as governor. He says in the book that there are ‘unwritten rules and traditions at play in those fistfights on ice.’”

    ROMNEY: “Former Governor Mitt Romney is on a weeklong trip to the Middle East for a series of high-level meetings, a trip that could help bolster his foreign policy credentials as he weighs a presidential run,” the Boston Globe reports. “Romney left on Friday for Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, according to senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom. He is planning to meet with President Karzai of Afghanistan, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, and King Abdullah II of Jordan.”

    SANTORUM: “Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s eighth exploratory trip to the state will include Tuesday night as the first guest at the home of Republican Senate candidate Ovide and Bettie Lamontagne starting a series of meet-and-greets with GOP wannabes,” the Nashua Telegraph reports.

    IOWA: “Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are in a close contest for the hearts and minds of likely Iowa caucus-goers, according to a new poll of Iowa Republicans conducted by the GOP firm Neighborhood Research,” Politico reports.

    NEW HAMPSHIRE: “New Hampshire may have to dig in its heels a bit to protect its first-in-the-nation primary status,” the Laconia Citizen writes. “But with a set date from the DNC and no specific mandate from the RNC, Nevada's Republican and Democratic caucuses have both been scheduled for Feb. 18, just four days after New Hampshire's Primary and, thusly, in conflict with New Hampshire state law. That law states that New Hampshire's primary must fall at least seven days before another state's.”

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