Sarah Palin speech electrifies Kansas crowd

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Barbara Hollingsworth, who provided a running account of Gov. Palin's speech via Twitter in real time, wrote it up for the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Here's a portion of her report:

Even Palin couldn't ignore the excitement her appearance generated. Back stage, she said, a chamber member told her, " 'Man, this is like a Van Halen concert.' I said, 'Man, I wish.' "

In her speech, Palin sounded off on national security, government bailouts and limited government ideals. And she offered lots of praise for the hometown crowd.

"In a time when folks so fear that much is going wrong, your town is an example of how to get it right and how to soar," said Palin, who was joined in Salina by her daughter, Piper. "Shoot, your state's motto even has it right: to the stars through difficulties."

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Telling the crowd she was going to "call is like I see it," she said Washington, D.C., politicians need to "back off." While Americans have lost jobs and learned to live with less, she charged that government has become more bloated.

"Over the past year, Washington has replaced private irresponsibility with public irresponsibility," she said.

The country, she said, needs health reform "not backroom deals." She suggested measures like allowing insurance purchases across state lines and tort reform.

Also, she said the country needs to pursue "all of the above approach to energy." She said increased drilling for oil must be pursued.

"Drill here and drill now and tap our own plentiful energy supplies," she said.

The Obama administration, she said, has lost its way on foreign policy. She said people wonder if the United States is still a "beacon of hope" for freedom.

"We need a foreign policy that distinguishes America's friends from her enemies and recognizes the true nature of these threats that we are facing," Palin said.

In the end, her speech brought the crowd to its feet.

Read the full C-J story here.

Here are some excerpts from Brent Wistrom's account of Gov. Palin's address for the Wichita Eagle published on Kansas.com:

The former governor of Alaska drew some of the loudest applause at the Bicentennial Center when she criticized law enforcement officials for questioning a suspected Christmas Day airplane bomber for only 50 minutes before reading him Miranda rights.

"We need a commander in chief, not a professor of constitutional law," she said as her words drowned in applause. About 6,000 people filled the arena.

Palin said that investigators should have asked more questions of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before granting him Miranda rights, a right to remain silent and contact a lawyer.

"Treating this threat as a mere law enforcement matter places our country at a grave risk," she said.

That resonated with several people after the nearly 40-minute speech ended.

"I think my new motto is 'America is ailin', we need Palin,' " said Wayne Burke, a minister from Arkansas City.

As he left, he said: "It fired me up."

Salina.com also posted a brief preview here of Michael Strand's story for the Saturday edition of the Salina Journal.

- JP