Sarah Palin comes to Iowa to bury Perry, not to endorse him

– by Josh Painter
*
With apologies to William Shakespeare:

Friends, Republicans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Perry, not to endorse him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Perry. The noble Bachmann
Hath told you Perry is ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Perry answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Bachmann and the rest, —
For Bachmann is an honorable Republican;
So are they all, all honorable Republicans, —
Come I to speak in Perry’s political funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to a degree:
But Bachmann says he was ambitious;
And Bachmann is an honorable Republican.

According to Scott Conroy, national political reporter for RealClearPolitics, Gov. Palin will make it clear that she if enters the presidential race later this month she will “vociferously” challenge Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s self-created image of solidarity with the tea party movement:

In her speech at the bucolic National Balloon Classic field in Indianola, Palin will lean on loaded phrases like “crony capitalism” and “permanent political class” in laying out her view of the U.S. political system’s deep-rooted ills, according to a source close to Palin and familiar with the content of the speech.

Though she will not call Perry out by name, Palin’s carefully couched rhetoric will leave the impression that she may soon draw more overt attention to one of the Texan’s potential vulnerabilities as a candidate: his history of doling out plum positions and other benefits to generous campaign donors during his nearly 11-year tenure as the nation’s longest serving governor.

“Part of what she’s going to be addressing is the frustration that many Americans feel that nothing gets done in Washington, D.C.,” a Palin source told RealClearPolitics. “We know that we have a debt problem and that we need to rein in government waste, and yet nothing ever gets done. Why is that? What special interests are involved?”

Palin’s speech before what will likely be one of the largest crowds of the campaign season to date will come on the third anniversary of her 2008 Republican convention address in the Twin Cities, when she accepted the vice presidential nomination in an almost universally acclaimed speaking performance.

In another likely indication that she still has her sights set on a White House run, Palin will also tout her record as governor of Alaska, particularly in ushering in what an aide described as “sudden and relentless reform” to state government.

[More]

Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war.

Cross-posted from Texans for Sarah Palin

– JP