Katie McGuire: Meeting "The Rogue"

Red County contributor Katie McGuire met Sarah Palin at the book signing Sunday in Richland, Washington. A brief excerpt:

"We’re living about 3 hours away from Richland right now, so my daughter Raechel and I loaded up and left at 5:45 to wait in line.We got there about 9, and got in a VERY long line that went around the corner from Hastings, around McDonald’s, looped back around the block, where we got in line. My daughter was quite a little trouper, and we took turns carrying our lunch bag. Hastings opened at 10, so they were able to get people lined up inside the store." 

"As we were standing in line waiting, someone told us Sarah was greeting people from the back of the line..."

Read Katie's full report at Red County.

- Tom

Sleepless east of Seattle

They began lining up at 10 o'clock Saturday morning outside the Richland Hastings store in eastern Washington State. Sarah Palin, whom they had come to see and whose signature they hoped to get inside the covers of their copies of Going Rogue, wasn't scheduled to be there until noon the following day. It's scene that has been repeated at every stop on on the eastern leg of her book tour, and it all begins anew in the West today.

The Seattle Times reports:

By 9:30 Saturday night, some 250 of the faithful were camped outside the store, sitting in lawn chairs, covering themselves with blankets and sleeping bags, warming up with portable propane heaters.

"She stands for what we stand for, which is greatly lacking in Seattle," said Debi Danielson, 54, of Yakima. "Only in Seattle can you come up with a government that has the idea that they know how to do everything."

Identify yourself as being from west of the Cascades — specifically, that liberal city by Elliott Bay — and you will be told in no uncertain terms why they love Sarah here.

Danielson was here with her husband, Dale Danielson, 55, a craftsman who works for the Bureau of Reclamation, doing stuff like fixing fish screens. Also accompanying them was Debi Danielson's mom, Vi Grauman, 80.

"The state should be chopped in half," said the husband, about the eastside/westside political split.

Debi Danielson described the crowd patiently waiting outside in the cold.

"We're conservative. We won't leave a mess like liberals do," she said. "Ever seen the parks after they leave? All garbage."

More here.

- JP

Sarah Palin will run In 5K Thanksgiving charity race

Sarah Palin and about two dozen of her family members will work up appetites for their Thanksgiving meal by participating in a 5K run to benefit the Red Cross, according to an AP report in the Seattle Times:

Heather Filbin with the Benton-Franklin Chapter of the American Red Cross said Wednesday that about 25 Palin relatives had registered for the annual Turkey Trot at Kennewick's Columbia Park.

Family from Washington, Texas and Alaska are gathering for the holidays at the Richland home of Sarah's aunt Katie Johnson. It's something of a small family reunion for the clan and a break for the former governor away from the book tour bus to spend time with family members.

Mrs. Palin will resume the book tour on Sunday, when she will be signing copies of Going Rogue at noon local time at the Hastings book store in Richland. Then it's back on the road again, with book tour stops in Tempe, Arizona and Roswell, New Mexico the next day.

- JP