NASHVILLE — Sarah Palin said she would consider a run for president in 2012 “if I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family,” according to a television interview broadcast Sunday morning.
Sarah Palin at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville on Saturday. More Photos »
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“It would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country,” she told host Chris Wallace on the news program “Fox News Sunday” in an interview conducted a few hours before her Saturday night address at the inaugural National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. “I won’t close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future.”
Those words were buttressed by the response she received inside the convention Saturday night. As Ms. Palin left the convention stage, the crowd erupted into chants of “Run, Sarah, Run.”
Ms. Palin gave the Tea Party crowd exactly what they wanted to hear on Saturday, declaring the primacy of the Tenth Amendment in limiting government powers, complaining about the bailouts and the “generational theft” of rising deficits, and urging the audience to back conservative challengers in contested primaries.
“America is ready for another revolution!” she told the crowd, prompting the first of several standing ovations.
While Ms. Palin told Fox News that she approved of President Obama’s beefing up the American military force in Afghanistan, she was dismissive of his decision to try some high-profile accused terrorists in United States civilian courtrooms. She called on Attorney General Eric Holder, who formally made the decision, to resign.
“We’re at war and these are acts of war that these terrorists are committing and we need to treat them differently,” she said. “I don’t think terrorists are worthy of rights that people like my son fight and are willing to die for.”
In the Fox interview, Mr. Wallace took note of a poll showing her leading other potential Republican candidates with 16 percent of the respondents, and asked if she was more knowledgeable on domestic and foreign matters now than during her run in 2008 as the Republican vice presidential candidate.
“I would hope so,” she replied. Before she was chosen as John McCain’s running mate, she said, her “engagement was with the state of Alaska” and such issues as ramping up energy production. She was often criticized during that campaign as ignorant of key policy matters.
“Now that my focus has been enlarged, I sure as heck better be more astute on these current events, national issues,” she said during the recorded interview.
Ms. Palin gave fewer hints about her political plans a few hours later at the convention, when Judson Phillips, the organizer, prodded her in a brief question-and-answer period after her 40-minute speech. When he asked her about the “two words that scare liberals: President Palin,” she demurred, smiling and looking to the side of the stage where she said her youngest daughter, Piper, was watching.
She said she would support those candidates who “understand free market principles” and “personal responsibility.” Without saying which candidates she would support, she said she would campaign for conservative challengers in some Republican primaries.
“This is how we’re going to find the cream of the crop to face a challenger in the general,” she said. “Let’s not be afraid of contested primaries.”
Her speech was closely watched as a potential signal of Ms. Palin’s political future and the extent to which the convention would embrace her. But Ms. Palin, while aligning herself firmly with the Tea Party, nevertheless urged the 1,100 delegates who had gathered in a hotel ballroom not to let the movement be defined by any one leader.
“This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any one king or queen of a tea party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter,” she said.
That was just one of several digs at President Obama. “How’s that hopey-changey thing workin’ out for you?” she asked at one point. She blasted him for rising deficits, “apologizing for America” in speeches in other countries, and for allowing the so-called Christmas bomber to board a plane headed for the United States, saying he was weak on the war on terrorism.
“To win that war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law,” she declared.
Pressed about the relationship between the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement, and whether the latter should become a third party, Ms. Palin suggested to Mr. Phillips that the two should be compatible.
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