Report: Gov. Palin going to Sudan, perhaps UK, in July

"I am going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way."
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Last week at a New Hampshire clambake, according to an article in The Australian, Gov. Palin reportedly told Times of London correspondent Christina Lamb that she plans to travel to Sudan and possibly The UK next month.

Lamb was asking that familiar question -- when does the potential 2012 presidential candidate think she may decide whether to enter the race -- when the governor rather matter-of-factly disclosed her intentions to make another trip abroad:

Asked by The Sunday Times when she would decide, Palin replied: "Some weeks".

She may first seek advice from another unconventional female politician, Margaret Thatcher. "I am going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way," she said. "I am just hoping Mrs Thatcher is well enough to see me as I so admire her."

If she's going to Sudan, there's a good chance that it will be as part of a Samaritan's Purse mercy mission. Gov. Palin has worked with Rev. Franklin Graham's charitable organization several times in the past, including a visit in December to Haiti. Samaritan's purse has an operation in South Sudan.

There has also been much speculation in months past about a possible Palin visit to Britain, but this is the first time the governor has mentioned it recently.

h/t: M. Joseph Sheppard

- JP

Walshe: Overseas trip getting closer to reality for Gov. Palin? (Updated)

Israel and UK likely destinations in the new year
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Gov. Palin's long-rumored overseas excursion may be resolving into more concrete plans. The Daily Beast's Shushannah Walshe reports that Sarah Palin will be visiting Israel and England, both countries she has said she wanted to travel to in the past. Walshe says the schedule and itinerary is still being firmed up, but points out that a trip overseas next year will boost Gov. Palin's foreign policy credentials, which would be a plus for her should she decide to run for president in 2012:

Up to now Palin’s travel outside of North America includes visiting troops in Germany and Kuwait while she was governor and last year she gave a speech on the economy in Hong Kong. During the 2008 campaign, there was some confusion about whether she had also visited Iraq when traveling to see soldiers in Kuwait, but that turned out to be a visit to the border. McCain staffers at the time also said she had visited Ireland, but that was a re-fueling stopover.

Palin has long wanted to visit Israel, and in a recent Facebook post wishing the Jewish community a Happy Hanukkah she reconfirmed her support for the Jewish state: “Today we should all recommit ourselves to ensuring that the miracle of a Jewish state endures forever. The dreidel is one of the most familiar symbols of Hanukkah, with Hebrew letters on it representing the phrase Nes Gadol Haya Sham—‘a great miracle happened there.’ Indeed a great miracle is still happening there.”

Last June, Palin announced on her Facebook page that she had been invited to visit London and have a meeting with one of her “political heroines,” Margaret Thatcher. She also wished the “Iron Lady,” who suffers from dementia, a happy birthday in October.

The former Alaska governor was criticized in 2008 for her limited global travel, but this first foreign trip post-governorship would burnish her foreign-policy credentials and would certainly be accompanied by a media frenzy as both the Israeli and English press follow her closely.

Walshe notes that the governor has two foreign policy advisors, Randy Scheunemann and Michael Goldfarb, and she has been writing more often about issues of global interest on her Facebook page.

Update: Palin aide Rebecca Mansour, via email to NRO, says that “the governor has no firm plans that she will announce right now for an Israel or UK trip.”

- JP

Gov. Palin hopes to visit Israel, UK

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Now that the 2010 elections is history, Sarah Palin and her aides are turning their attention to what will be her next act on the political stage. An article for Real Clear Politics by Scott Conroy previews scenes such as travel abroad, a focus on issues and the prospect of a run for the White House:

Since resigning from office, Palin has proven time and again the primacy of her influence in the Republican Party, setting the tone and defining the parameters on issues ranging from health care to monetary policy. And she has done it by shattering the traditional rules of communication, using Twitter, Facebook, and her regular appearances on Fox News and conservative radio to bypass the traditional media to whom she and her staff have taken a special delight in deriding.

[...]

Now that the midterms are over and the campaign before the presidential campaign has begun, Palin is making some adjustments, fully aware that she cannot tweet, Facebook post, and Sean Hannity her way to the White House. She recently granted extensive interviews to the New York Times and ABC News, and her SarahPAC staff intends to make a more concerted effort to highlight to the media her prepared remarks on the frequent policy speeches she gives.

Meanwhile, Palin's ratings-shattering TLC show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," will continue to show millions of American homes the kinder, gentler side of Palin's personality each Sunday night for the next seven weeks.

Palin's outsized influence on the midterm elections and her most recent pronouncements about her presidential intentions have caused the D.C. narrative to shift in recent weeks, as Beltway logic now holds that Palin is indeed seriously interested in running for president and could be a strong contender to win the Republican nomination.

[...]

A visit to Israel is high on Palin's current to-do list, and her staff is still hoping to arrange a trip for her to meet with one of her political heroines, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Palin has taken a particular interest in the European debt crisis as of late, and SarahPAC recently hired Joshua Livestro - a Dutch newspaper columnist who has also contributed to the pro-Palin web site Conservatives4Palin.com - to research the topic for Palin on a freelance basis.

Palin's second book, America By Heart, will be released on Tuesday and is a near shoo-in to join her first title, Going Rogue, as a quick bestseller. Unlike Going Rogue's biographical focus, Palin's new book is mostly philosophical in nature and reads as a series of essays on well-travelled topics ranging from the role of faith in the public sphere to the concept of American exceptionalism.

[...]

Palin's challenges remain numerous as she comes to a decision on whether to run for president. If the answer is indeed "yes," one of her first big moves will be planning the official announcement of her campaign-a date that one Palin confidante privately agreed will likely come later in 2011, after her lesser known opponents launch their own runs and she can assess the field.

[More]

- JP

UK's Daily Mail: Palin power surges across America

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Here are some excerpts from a view from across the Big Pond by Mary Ellen Synon in London's Daily Mail:

Sarah Palin has turned into the king-maker of the mid-term elections.

The party primaries have started, and the power that Mrs Palin now has with the anti-government Tea Party movement has started knocking establishment Republicans right off the party ticket.

Establishment Republicans: those are the kind of Republican politicians who think their job is to be ‘bi-partisan.’ On Capitol Hill this is called ‘being willing to reach across the aisle.’ Problem is, among the new conservative Tea Party surge this is called ‘being willing to betray conservative principles.’

And in the midst of what is being called the Great Recession, as unemployment stays high, house prices get ready to plunge again, and the deficit moves into unimaginable trillions, this Tea Party surge is angry.

Some of the Tea Party people might have believed Barack Obama would deliver change for the good in America. They don’t believe it anymore.

As Sarah Palin mocked in her speech to the Tea Party Convention in February, ‘How’s that hopey, changey stuff working out for ya?’ Short answer: it’s not.

It's a good article which can be perused in its entirety here.

h/t: roy y

- JP

David Riddick: A tectonic shift in the Telegraph's coverage of Gov. Palin

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David Riddick, C4P's contributor from across the big pond, detects what he says is a tectonic shift in the London Daily Telegraph's treatment of Governor Palin by two of their Stateside correspondents, Alex Spillius and Toby Harnden:

Spillius and Harnden, even though residents in the USA have never, to my knowledge, made any attempt to use actual shoeleather to research Palin or sought to arrange an interview. Instead they have been content to parrot talking points from the NYT and WaPo or dinner party put downs from the great and the good of the Beltway.

But that video has affected the mercury in the political barometer.

Citing Spillius' latest offering, The Aged P explains the importance of such articles:

Firstly, for the Brits, it allows a foreign audience to see Palin as a serious political figure rather than a one minute wonder out of a Jerry Springer show.

But it has a much deeper significance for the USA. Spillius, Harnden and Co. purvey gossip and rumour from the political players of DC and their hangers on. For Spillius to write something like this means that there has been a shift of the tectonic plates.

Washington has started to take Sarah Palin much more seriously – and it’s beginning to show.

Read David Riddick's full post at Conservatives4 Palin.

- JP

Quote of the Day (June 17, 2010)

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Guido Fawkes:

"As PM it would be extremely discourteous for [David Cameron] not to meet and be photographed with Palin if she was in town, a [courtesy] British PMs have extended to lesser known American politicians. Guido’s transatlantic sources indicate that she could be over on this side of the pond in the Autumn, perhaps around the time of Conservative Party conference, just when Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell will be launching their Direct Democracy version of the American Tea Party movement."

h/t: The Aged P

- JP

Sarah Palin to visit the UK? Sounds like a sterling idea!

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The UK's Daily Mail says that Gov. Palin is planning a trip to Great Britain that would include a visit with Margaret Thatcher. The paper quotes a spokesman for Lady Thatcher who says the former PM has agreed to meet the 2008 vice presidential candidate if she comes to the UK.

The rest of the Daily Mail story is mostly elitist snark, mindless gossip and leftist stupidity. For example, the paper says;

"Any trip by Mrs Palin to Britain could cause potential problems for David Cameron.

Embarrassingly, Mrs Palin’s team have not contacted No 10 so far."

Embarrassingly? If a Palin visit to Merrie Olde England would pose such a problem for Cameron, then it seems to us that the governor would save the PM "embarrassment" by not contacting him. After all, why should a meeting between two women, neither of which holds public office at the moment, involve or even concern 10 Downing Street?

We see such a trip, if it is actually in the works, as win-win-win for Gov. Palin. Since liberals apparently put a high value on the number of stamps a politician's passport has collected, a visit to Great Britain would deprive them of one of the stones they love to cast at the governor. Also, Lady Thatcher has been an inspiration to the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate since Sarahcuda was a young girl, and a meeting between the two would be of great significance to her. Finally, with a creepy stalker renting next door to the Palin family digs in Alaska for the summer, we can't think of a better time for a European vacation.

In fact, why not jet to Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and other destinations while they are at it? There's even time to visit some other countries which were once solid U.S. allies but have been snubbed by Obama. It's a long summer and a big world. We're sure Joe McGinness would appreciate the peace and quiet having the Palin clan gone for the summer would afford him so he can concentrate on writing that literary masterpiece he's working on.

- JP

Quote of the Day (June 12, 2010)

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The Daily Mail (UK)*:

"Sarah Palin could soon be on her way to Britain to boost her hopes of challenging Barack Obama in the 2012 US presidential election... And Lady Thatcher has agreed to see Mrs Palin, who stood as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008. A spokesman said: ‘We had an informal approach asking if Lady Thatcher would meet Mrs Palin if she comes to Britain and we said yes.’"

*Leftist media snark alert

- JP