In a
story written by Sean Cockerham in Anchorage and Erika Bolstad in Washington, D.C. published Wednesday in the Anchorage Daily News, Sarah Palin's spokeswoman said that the former governor will not be making an appearance at a Thursday night event sponsored by the Alaska Family Council:
It would be at least the fourth time in recent months that an anticipated Palin speech has fallen through after Palin and her camp disputed they had ever confirmed it. That includes the brouhaha over whether she'd speak at the annual congressional Republican fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., this summer.
This time it's an event promoting an Alaska ballot measure aimed at making it illegal for teens to get an abortion without telling their parents. The Alaska Family Council has been advertising that Palin would give a speech and become the first official signer of the ballot petition tonight at ChangePoint, the Anchorage megachurch
An
e-mail blast from Family Research Council president Tony Perkins was sent out across Alaska to promote the event, and former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman had recorded a message for automated telephone calls asking Alaskans "to meet with Gov. Sarah Palin and me this Thursday for an event to protect young girls facing abortion decisions."
Te Family Council's
website continues to promote the event and has been updated with the following statement:
Alaskans for Parental Rights is looking forward to having former Governor Sarah Palin join us this evening for the kick-off event for our initiative to protect the right of parents to be involved in the abortion decisions of their teenage daughters.
Media reports in the last 24 hours have quoted the Governor’s spokeswoman as saying that Mrs. Palin never committed to attend the event, and that she will not be present this evening.
We have been in regular communications with the Governor’s staff over the last several weeks. We were assured that Governor Palin was personally aware of this evening’s event, and that she twice confirmed her intent to participate.
We look forward to Governor Palin honoring her commitment to attend, and we appreciate her public support of our effort to pass this important voter initiative to protect the rights of parents and the health of teenage girls.
According to the ADN story, Stapleton agrees that former governor Palin received an invitation to appear at the event:
"She had hoped to be able to attend but cannot return (to Alaska) in time for that private fundraiser," Stapleton said.
She said Palin notified the group that she would be out of town; Minnery said he didn't know anything about Palin saying she wouldn't be in Anchorage.
[...]
Stapleton said Palin had previously agreed to be the first signer of the petition for the ballot measure pushed by the family council. But, "obviously since the signature-gathering process started a couple of weeks ago there was less pressure to get home to be the first to sign," she said Wednesday.
What's our take on all this? This blog exists for reason only -- to support Sarah Palin. We don't criticize her or anyone in her organization lightly. We only do so rarely and in the hopes that such criticism will be constructive and accepted as such. In this case, we're not going to point the finger of fault at anyone. We won't accuse the promoter of such a worthy cause, nor will we accuse the good folks on the former governor's staff who are dedicated to her and work hard for her. We can only humbly offer our unsolicited advice, like everyone else does, from the political consultants who are quoted in Politico to Mom and Pop bloggers like us. Such advice is always worth its price, which in this case is free. In other words, the advice can be considered or ignored without voiding any warranty, express or implied; your mileage may vary.
The first rule of communications for a political figure is to control your message. When you bypass the media and use social networking websites to get your message out, that's an innovative step to take, but it still doesn't give you control of your message. When your team is reacting to news stories about you, and only when contacted by the reporters who wrote the items, you are not controlling your message. We believe Sarah Palin needs to get control of her message. We think an experienced media consultant with a presidential primary campaign on her resume -- one such as Jeri Thompson, a Team Sarah member -- could help her with that. We are not suggesting that anyone is not doing their job or should lose it. Nor are we implying that anyone even needs to be reassigned. That's not necessary. But Jeri Thompson would be a valuable asset to bring into Sarah Palin's inner circle.
- JP
