CNN: Sarah Palin to team up with Michael Steele at RNC rallies

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CNN's Political Ticker, citing "multiple Republican sources," reports that Gov. Palin and RNC Chairman Michael Steele will join forces next month to hold two fundraising rallies:

The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee will team up with the RNC chairman at an event in Anaheim, California, on October 16 and in Orlando, Florida, on October 23.

According to a copy of the invitation acquired by CNN, contributions for the events range from $25 per person to attend one of the rallies to $30,400 per couple for a private meeting and reception with Palin and party leaders.

The Republicans' plans were first reported by Politico.

In August, in what was considered a surprising move at the time, Palin attached her name to a letter and survey that was mailed to RNC donors soliciting contributions for the committee's Victory 2010 program, a nationwide get-out-the-vote effort.

Gov. Palin, who has the cultivated her reputation as a political outsider, appears to be making an effort to mend fences with the GOP establishment now that the primary season is ever and as she considers a possible 2012 presidential bid.

Since the end of the 2008 campaign, the governor's relationship with the GOP establishment inside the Beltway has been a cool one. According to CNN, she angered some Washington GOP insiders in March of 2009 by not participating in a joint fundraiser for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). But she actually did attend the event, although she was not one of the speakers. A year later, she asked the RNC to remove her name from an invitation to a party fundraising event in New Orleans that listed her as one of several invited guests because the committee didn't bother to ask her before using her name to promote the event.

In addition, she has supported a number of anti-establishment Tea Party candidates for the House, the Senate and governor against the party's preferred candidates in GOP primaries, and several of them won their races. Now that the Washington GOP is getting behind those candidates with campaign contributions and other forms of support, Gov. Palin appears to be more willing to work with Republican insiders. In her speech to the Iowa Republican Party’s Ronald Reagan Dinner September 17, she told a record crowd in Des Moines, "In just 46 days Republicans will put their ideas and their experience on the line to let the voters decide. It is time to unite."

Politico's Ben Smith comments:

Steele is under fire from the GOP Establishment, as always, this time for his travels outside the battlegrounds, and sometimes outside the 50 states. Palin's willingness to show up for him -- and not, say, for the "shadow RNC" led by Karl Rove and other GOP figures -- enhances his stature, and perhaps his bid for a second term of his own.

He and Palin may not have all that much in common, but they've backed one another in the past, and they're both genuine outsiders at this point, with the same enemies inside the party.

- JP