Gov. Palin wows the crowd at Bucks County fundraiser

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At a fundraiser expected to bring in $250,000 for a Philadelphia area Christian school Tuesday night, Sarah Palin teased her audience with the prospect of a 2012 presidential run:

After an alumnus of the private school, north of Doylestown in Bucks County, finished an uplifting performance of "God Bless America," she coyly asked him, "Would you like to sing that at an Inauguration?"

It was just what the crowd... wanted to hear. For an hour, the audience of students, parents and alumni listened as the former Alaska governor delivered a speech that was part homespun tales from the Palin household and part hardball tea party politics.

At the end of her program, the school's chancellor, Dean Whiteway, returned to the question on everyone's mind: Under what circumstances would she consider running for president?

"Goodness gracious," Palin answered. "I'm speechless."

She said it would take "prayerful consideration and polling of my family" before she would make up her mind on whether to run in 2012. "I would be in it to win it," Palin said. "I wouldn't do it just to shake things up." She added, "I would certainly have to put a lot more thought into it than what I could give you today."

The governor devoted much of her speech to the idea of American exceptionalism and the nation's Judeo-Christian heritage:

"We must continue to build on our Judeo-Christian heritage, and it's nothing to apologize for," Palin, hero of the surging tea-party movement and a possible 2012 presidential candidate, told about 700 donors at the Plumstead Christian School, in upper Bucks County.

It was the biggest applause line for Palin, who spoke frequently in her roughly 30-minute speech and a question-and-answer session with students of both the role of faith in her life and political career and of her belief that God should play a greater role in the public square.

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At one point, the 2008 vice-presidential candidate and icon of conservative feminism said of bedrock beliefs in the Constitution and in the values of freedom that "something seems to be missing, and especially in the last year or two."

Later, she criticized Obama's call in the 2008 campaign for a "fundamental transformation" of America, saying that what the nation instead needed was a "fundamental restoration and renewal" back to its original values, which include faith.

Two anonymous benefactors reportedly picked up the tab to bring Gov. Palin to Bucks County for the Plumstead events.

- JP