Sarah Palin speaks to 2,000 at chamber event in Daytona Beach

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The Daytona Regional Chamber of Commerce worked for over six months to convince Sarah Palin to be the featured speaker at the organization's 90th annual meeting, and as a result ticket sales tripled the 680 sold last year. When the former governor of Alaska and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate delivered her address Monday night, there was a crowd estimated at 2,000 gathered at the Ocean Center to hear it.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that Gov. Palin spoke for an hour, and then she answered some questions, in a Q&A similar to the one she participated in following her speech in Nashville nine days earlier.

In her speech, Mrs. Palin emphasized four of her signature issues -- smaller federal government, fiscal restraint, energy independence and a foreign policy that favors U.S. allies instead of America's enemies:

Blasting the federal bailout of the banks and the auto industry, Palin said the policies of the current administration make us "less secure, less free."

"Washington has broken faith with the people they serve," Palin said. "They have replaced private irresponsibility with public irresponsibility."

She wants to ax the next round of economic stimulus spending, stop and start over on health-care reform and smooth the permitting process for companies that want to drill for oil and gas, mine for coal and expand the availability of nuclear energy.

Regarding drilling and mining, Palin said, "These are jobs that can't be outsourced."

Palin encouraged those present to continue to "pitch in and work to find solutions" to the current economic crisis.

The Orlando Sentinel's coverage of the event mentioned that Gov. Palin also addressed the issue of the ailing U.S. economy and how it effects small businesses:

Her speech, with a theme on how to keep Daytona on a road to prosperity, chided Washington spending. "I think some people in Washington are addicted to O-P-M — other people's money," she said, scoring one of many rounds of applause.

During the Q&A session after her address, chamber president Ted Doran tried to get Gov. Palin to make a definitive statement about her political plans, but she brushed aside the question, saying only that she wanted to return to the area next year and bring her husband, Todd, and their children to the Daytona 500. She told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" recently that she would 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."

- JP