SRLC open thread and live blog: Sarah Palin

Today’s SRLC session starts with the biggest draw, Sarah Palin.  She’s immediately preceded by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, who has been an important voice in the controversies at the RNC and should provide fireworks of his own.  But of course, Palin’s address will draw the most attention not from just the gathered attendees here but also in the media.

This is a change of pace for Palin.  She opted out of the think-tank establishment CPAC event, but this will be the first time she’s engaged so publicly with the party establishment since the end of the 2008 campaign.  Will she deliver shots across the bow, or will she signal a desire to work from within the Republican Party?  My guess will be a blend of both, but emphasis more on the latter, which was the sotto voce message of her endorsement of John McCain.

I’ll do a little old-fashioned live blogging, but we’ll also use this as an open thread for those watching on C-SPAN.

12:24 PM CT: Tony Perkins leads off with a funny story about his family’s latest addition, and the need to not “pack up and leave.”  “I think it’s critical to send the message that we’re not giving up.”

12:26: Perkins coins a new term: “the insolent majority” in Congress.

12:30: Is Obama going to be speaking at the same time as Palin?  That’s the rumor on Twitter.  Perkins may need to stretch his remarks out a bit.

12:36: Perkins’ focus on gays is creating some backlash on Blogger Row.  One comment: “Is this really the big problem we face at the moment?”

12:37: Perkins closes with a “Let’s git ‘er done.”  Not a bad speech, especially considering his position in this conference as one of the voices of social conservatives.

12:40 – Palin enters to the theme from Rudy — an interesting choice.

12:42: “Do you love your freedom?”  Big cheers.  Crowd is definitely pumped.

12:43: Gives Jonah Goldberg a shout-out while talking about Tax Freedom Day.

12:44: “The Obama Doctrine is: coddling enemies while alienating our friends.”  This is a pretty good slap back at Charlie Gibson’s professorial demand of Palin to define the Bush Doctrine.

12:45: Blames Obama administration for alienating Hamid Karzai, and then being shocked when he publicly lashed out at the US.

12:47: “Don’t retreat, reload — and that is not a call for violence!”  Gets a huge cheer.  “The media is so desperate to discredit … the Tea Party movement … It means engage and debate.”

12:50: “What’s wrong with being the Party of No … when their proposals violate the Constitution?”

12:51 : At the 11-minute mark, first mention of GOP and the need to support it in the upcoming elections to “starve the beast.”

12:52: “The administration apparently thinks we’re overproducing energy here.”

12:54: My impression thus far is that this is the speech of an activist, not necessarily that of a candidate.

12:56: The drilling program announced by Obama was nothing more than a “bait and switch.”  “Anything sounds good in front of a fighter jet.”  They gave enviros “more time to sue.”

12:58: Describing all of the areas that Obama locked out of exploration and development.  This is a great strong suit for Palin, playing right into her wheelhouse.

12:59: “Drill, baby, drill, not Stall, baby, stall!”  Called notes on the hand “a poor man’s teleprompter,” which got more cheers.

1:01: The GOP needs to show voters what a real everything-on-the-table energy policy looks like.  Second mention of the party, ten minutes after the first.

1:04: Talking about the need to develop alternative energy, but doing so using competitive markets, not top-down governmental control.

1:05: Calls climate scandals “Gore-gate.”

1:06: Need a “good old-fashioned election” to fix problems with energy independence.  We have seven months to say “Oh no you don’t!” to their “Yes we can!”

1:07: “This is the party that won the Cold War!”

1:08: “This is our party … I say we stand together and take our country back!”

My thoughts: A very good speech, wildly received by the crowd, but it’s not much different from her regular stump speeches.  If Republicans were looking for engagement with the party, she provided a little of it … but not much.  At least she didn’t challenge the establishment in this speech, which may have been a signal to the third-party advocates that she’s not going to go that direction, which she has said much more explicitly in other arenas.

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