Sarah Palin is in Michigan today. Lucky us. Her devotees started lining up last night, in fact.
Well, according to Palin, it’s because Michigan is where she first “went rogue”.
[Michigan is] “the state where I ‘went rogue’ trying to reach out to during the campaign.I suggested to the VP staff that the next time we had an official event near Michigan, we pass the hat for gas money and just do a quick trip across the border to snap one off-the-record photo at a café or gas station, maybe hold a quick grassroots rally. I thought we would send a positive message to the state that way.”
What’s weird is that Palin denies that she knew that McCain decided to pull out of Michigan. She claims nobody ever told her or her staff:
WINFREY: Didn’t several times they say to you when actually you mentioned, when you were talking about pulling out of Michigan and you said I wished we’d stayed in Michigan. Weren’t you told then, Sarah just stay on script?PALIN: Right, told after wards and that, that was always puzzling to me because if I were to respond to a reporter’s questions very candidly, honestly, for instance, they say, “what do you think about the campaign pulling out of Michigan” and I think, “darn I wish we weren’t. Every vote matters, I can’t wait to get back to Michigan” and then told afterwards that, “oh, you screwed up. You went rogue on us Sarah, you’re not supposed to be.” And my reminder to the campaign was, I didn’t know we pulled out of Michigan. My entire VP team, we didn’t know that we had pulled out.
But, like much of her book, this appears to be a lie. As Andrew Sullivan points out, Palin knew damn well that they had pulled out of Michigan. So why would she tell this lie? Telling the truth supports the image she’s proffering to her followers that she was the mavericky rogue of the campaign, not McCain. If she hadn’t known they had pulled out, then she could claim she had “Gone Rogue”. If she didn’t know, she couldn’t have rogued-out on them.
So why the lie? Honestly, if she’ll lie about something as stupid as that, why would we believe anything she says/writes?
So, she’s in Grand Rapids today. She just loo-ooves her some Michigan. From her Facebook page:
“I’m starting in Michigan, and you’ll understand why when you read the book,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page. “I made a promise to the good people of Michigan that I would be back, and now I’m keeping that promise. (Michigan is near and dear to my family’s heart! Our eldest son, Track, lived with a great host family there during his hockey days.)”
She’s getting all kinds of attention, of course. They are only allowing 950 people in to the signing and they started handing out bracelets last night.
Andrea Mitchell broadcast from there this morning. The MLive.com is all abuzz. Both the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press have been covering it all week. A stage has been set up because there’s [shhhhh…don’t tell anyone…] a rumor that [whispering…] she might make “some comments” before and maybe even after the signing to all those who couldn’t get in.
All this hullabaloo because Michigan is the birthplace of Sarah Palin – Rogue CandidateTM. And she just couldn’t wait to get back! Like she says in the last line in ther book, on page 403:
“I want to show Piper,” her 8-year-old daughter, “the way to Michigan.”
Oh, shiver.
Well, she’s back. And some Michiganders can hardly wait to get a glimpse of her. And the quotes. Oh, dear god, the quotes…
“I think she’s terrific,” said Steve Thomas, 62, of Waterford. “She’s speaking on behalf of all Americans who believe in freedom and liberty.”
Bob Braun, 63: “She’s the best conservative voice we have in America today. She’s the right voice at the right time.”
“She’s a gorgeous woman who shoots moose,” Lucy Vigmustad said just before 7 a.m. as gates to the store were opening. “How do you not like that? She’s tough and loyal and tells the truth.”
Yeah. Loyal. Just ask Steve Schmidt.
Ugh.
Meanwhile, yesterday, Mike Huckabee stopped by Grand Rapids for his own book signing yesterday.
Pretty hard for other Republicans when Sarah’s taking up all the oxygen, eh, Mike?
Startin’ to look a bit like this:
I’m just sayin’…
