Sarah Palin: Can’t wait to meet our troops – & all those who love the U.S. Armed Forces – today at Ft. Bragg

Can’t wait to meet our troops – and all those who love the U.S. Armed Forces – today at Ft. Bragg. Read my book’s dedication page. The book is for these Patriots who fight for freedom. They deserve our support and our government’s unwavering commitment to equipping them for victory.

The book tour is beyond all expectations. This feels like the time when a team comes together, gearing up before a major competition to show unity and supply strength and encouragement to each team member equally, regardless of the team member’s role or title.

On this tour I hear the grave concerns Americans have for our children’s future. I also feel the hope so many of you want to cling to – hope for those on Capitol Hill to see the light, hope for politicians to be humble enough to acknowledge that growing the federal government isn’t the answer to our economic challenges, hope that it won’t take another terrorist strike to wake us up to continued threats by those who hate America and our allies.

At every stop on this tour I see Americans coming together to say, “Enough. We love our country too much to just sit down and shut up while politicians take us for a ride. We shall be heard.”

We see a united team.

Now, I want to give you more hope: We are Americans. Anything is possible in America. Anyone can make a positive difference. You don’t need a title or a political position or a pedigree. We can take our country back from those who think growing national debt will grow prosperity for us, the little guys. We can take it back from those who think shrinking military power will make the homeland safer for us, the little guys.

We can take it back because we’re fired up, and we’re all about telling our government to listen to us, trust us, get back on our side… or politicians: you’re fired.

Plunging our country deeper and deeper in debt; borrowing billions from foreign countries; relying on foreign nations to supply us with energy; talking about sanctions against dangerous regimes but not following through; hesitating to surge aggressively to stop terrorist strongholds from growing; allowing government to take over health care, banks, the auto industry, and who knows what else they’ve got up their sleeves... it’s all too much and we’ve had enough.

Ronald Reagan knew it took a united team to right the wrongs of Washington. He told his team in essence, “Gentlemen and Ladies, I hate inflation; I hate taxes; I hate terrorists. Do something about it.”

America, you’re doing something about it! Thank you for standing up and speaking out. Thank you for holding on to hope, for loving America so passionately and supporting our troops who fight for freedom. Keep the faith! 

- Sarah Palin

PS: Please continue to follow the tour’s progress by following me on Twitter at SarahPalinUSA.  Click Here To See Photos!

Chapter 4 Of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue: An American Life

Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin Chapter Four; Section 8, pages 255-257

By the third week in September, a “Free Sarah” campaign was under way and the press at large was growing increasingly critical of the McCain camp’s decision to keep me, my family and friends back home, and my governor’s staff all bottled up. Meanwhile, the question of which news outlet would land the first interview was a big deal, as it always is with a major party candidate.

From the beginning, Nicolle [Wallace] pushed for Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News. The campaign’s general strategy involved coming out with a network anchor, someone they felt had treated John well on the trail thus far. My suggestion was that we be consistent with that strategy and start talking to outlets like FOX and the Wall Street Journal. I really didn’t have a say in which press I was going to talk to, but for some reason Nicolle seemed compelled to get me on the Katie bandwagon.

“Katie really likes you,” she said to me one day. “she’s a working mom and admires you as a working mom. She has teenage daughter like you. She just relates to you,” Nicolle said. “believe me, I know her very well. I’ve worked with her.” Nicolle had left her gig at CBS just a few months earlier to hook up with the McCain campaign. I had to trust her experience, as she had dealt with national politics more than I had. But something always struck me as peculiar about the way she recalled her days in the White House, when she was speaking on behalf of President George W. Bush. She didn't have much to say that was positive about her former boss or the job in general. Whenever I wanted to give a shout-out to the White House’s homeland security efforts after 9/11, we were told we couldn’t do it. I didn’t know if that was Nicolle’s call. 

Nicolle went on to explain that Katie really needed a career boost. “She just has such low self-esteem,” Nicolle said. She added that Katie was going through a tough time. “She just feels she can’t trust anybody.”

I was thinking, And this has to do with John McCain’s campaign how?

Nicolle said. “She wants you to like her.”

Hearing all that, I almost started to feel sorry for her. Katie had tried to make a bold move from lively morning gal to serious anchor, but the new assignment wasn’t going very well. 

“You know what? We’ll schedule a segment with her,” Nicolle said. “If it doesn’t go well, if there’s no chemistry, we won’t do any others.” 

Meanwhile, the media blackout continued. It got so bad that a couple of times I had a friend in Anchorage track down phone numbers for me, and then I snuck in calls to folks like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and someone I thought was Larry Kudlow but turned out to be Neil Cavuto’s producer. I had a friend call Bill O’Reilly after I was inundated with supporters in Alaska asking why the campaign was “ignoring” his one-air requests for a McCain campaign interview. I had another friend scrambling to find Mark Levin’s number. Aboard the campaign plane I was within twenty-five feet of reporters for hours on end. Headquarters’ strategy was that I should not go to the back of the aircraft and talk to the press. At first this was subtle, but as the campaign wore on, Tracey or Tucker would call headquarters to request permission, and someone in DC would respond, “No! Absolutely not- block her if she tries to go back.”