DES MOINES, Iowa -- Though she won't be a candidate when she delivers a major address at a tea party rally in Iowa on Saturday, Sarah Palin will make it clear that she if enters the presidential race later this month she will vociferously challenge Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s engrained 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. […]
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.
“She’ll also address her own record in the sense that she has fought the powers that be her entire career in taking on the political machine and a corrupt political class in her own state,” the aide said. […]
In her speech Saturday, Palin will “more clearly” and “more boldly” offer policy prescriptions that she has laid out in Facebook posts over the past few months.
But the crux of her approximately 30-minute address will be to challenge the longstanding mores that have ruled Washington and the national Republican Party.
“Part of what she will address is . . . that tea party-elected people want to get things done, and then they encounter an intractable political mentality in D.C.,” the aide said. “They’re impervious to real reform, and that can’t continue any longer.”
Palin’s speech on Saturday, which has been advertised as a major address, will be even more closely watched after the recent drama between her staff and the leadership of the Tea Party of America -- the group hosting the event.
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