Indianola ‘Clusterf**k’
UPDATE: Iowa Rally Organizer Trashes Palin to NBC News?
UPDATE: Palin Blames O’Donnell?

Posted on | August 31, 2011 | 55 Comments

UPDATE 4:15 p.m. ET: Holy stinking crap!

Tea Party of America President Ken Crow told NBC News, “I had to cancel Ms. O’Donnell” after a conversation with Sarah Palin aides — and is now hopeful Palin will attend the Saturday rally in Indianola.
He was told by Palin’s team that he’d have a final answer shortly.
This comes after failed Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell was in, then out, then back in, and now indefinitely out. And Palin was in, then “on hold.”

What a nightmare: Crow makes Palin the bad guy, telling NBC News (!!) that it’s Palin’s fault that O’Donnell got dumped, thus feeding the MSM’s “diva” meme. I’m beginning to believe one friend’s conspiracy theory that this is all being orchestrated by Rick Perry’s campaign.

UPDATE 4:25 p.m. ET: Ace ponders the What Were They Thinking questions, but never mind the thinking, it’s the saying that’s the real issue: Why would Crow tell NBC News — the propaganda apparatus of the DNC — about a conflict between Palin and O’Donnell, knowing how harmful such a narrative would be to Palin?

UPDATE 4:48 p.m. ET: The raw craziness reaches stratospheric levels:

An O’Donnell aide told RCP that the former GOP candidate for senator in Delaware had texted Palin to ask about the rapidly developing situation but had not received a response.
While it is clear that O’Donnell’s proposed speaking slot was not acceptable to Palin’s camp, the Palin aide denied that anyone on the Palin team had explicitly demanded that O’Donnell be removed from the speaker’s list.
Palin’s concern arose, the aide said, when an O’Donnell aide suggested to event organizers that Palin wanted the Delawarean to share the stage with her.
“They haven’t spoken in over a year,” the aide said of the two women.

According to whom did an O’Donnell aide do this?

How did Palin’s aides learn about this? From “event organizers”? Why would Palin’s aide then tell this to a reporter? Does the aide think that making O’Donnell the villain will make Palin look good?

UPDATE 5:10 p.m. ET: Linked by Iowa’s Shane Vander Hart who prefers “disorganized mess” as a family-friendly way to describe this clusterf–k.

UPDATE 5:30 p.m. ET: More from Ace:

Before inviting O’Donnell, did it occur to [the Iowa organizers] they should run that by their headliner/whole reason to have the rally in the first place?
Did none of them wonder about this at all?

Good question. But now Crow appears to be trying to blame it on Palin, and Palin’s staff is pointing the finger at O’Donnell. And all of this is being played out in headlines in the MSM because nobody involved seems to know how to say “no comment” when a reporter calls — unless it’s me calling, in which case either (a) my calls go straight to voicemail or (b) nobody will talk on the record.

PREVIOUSLY (12:17 p.m. ET): An uproar has suddenly erupted over Sarah Palin’s planned Sept. 3 appearance at a Tea Party rally in Indianola, Iowa. It has been reported she cancelled her appearance, but my impression — I can’t say who I’ve talked to — is that Governor Palin very much wants to appear at the event.

The reported cancellation might be best interpreted as a “final warning” gesture from Team Sarah to the event organizers: Get your act together.

Based on what I’m hearing, Ken Crow’s Tea Party of America has undergone predictable problems because the Indianola rally is the first event the group has ever sponsored. TPA gained instant credibility by recruiting longtime Des Moines Tea Party leader Charlie Gruschow, but Crow previously has had limited involvement in the movement. Once Palin was announced as the event headliner, many other people wanted to get involved, and basic problems common to volunteer organizations developed. Disputes arose over questions about what level of security was required for Governor Palin, and about who else would speak during the rally.

The recent controversy over whether Christine O’Donnell would speak at the Indianola rally was the public tip of a submerged iceberg of behind-the-scenes conflict surrounding the event, evidence of organizational ineptitude that one person described bluntly as a “clusterf–k.”

The very latest word — which arrived while I was writing this — is that Palin’s previously “cancelled” appearance is now un-cancelled, but this unfortunate public controversy can be taken as further indication of the risks involved in volunteer grassroots organizing.

UPDATE: Scott Conroy cites “two sources close to [Palin]” — I’m not going to grumble about unreturned calls right now — about “issues regarding the hosts” of the rally, and also quotes TPA’s Crow:

“The truth of the matter is you’ve got a couple old cowboys running a Tea Party and we’re not professional politicians,” Tea Party of America President Ken Crowe told RCP earlier on Wednesday morning. “I’m way green.”

Alex Pappas at the Daily Caller quotes Crow:

An organizer of the much-publicized tea party rally in Iowa this weekend says Sarah Palin would not be doing herself any favors if she drops out of the event.
“I hope that isn’t so…It would hurt her more than hurt us,” event organizer Ken Crow, the co-founder and president of the Tea Party of America, told TheDC.

Pathetic. You get Palin to headline your rally, screw up the planning and then — when Palin’s people become uncomfortable with your bungling — say her cancellation would hurt her more than it hurts you?

You never would have had a rally if it hadn’t been for Palin agreeing to appear, and she never would have agreed to it if Charlie Gruschow wasn’t involved. Everybody in the Iowa grassroots tells me they love Charlie, an experienced organizer, but Ken Crow? “Never heard of him before this.”

UPDATE II: Dave Weigel at Slate:

I met Crow in Iowa this month (I’ve been unsuccessful reaching him today) and he struck me as a classic Tea Party archetype — an amateur with big Field of Dreams ambitions. He made me well aware of all the projects he was working on but seemed a little laconic for a guy putting on a mega-rally.
“It’s gonna be televised on C-Span,” he said, “and maybe Fox, too.”
Reading up on Crow today, we find that he’s a talky activist prone to showing how much he knows. For example, on Palin: “I know for a fact she ain’t gonna run.” That’s the guy bringing Palin to Iowa for an event that reporters are attending because they wonder whether Palin will run!

Exactly. Crow’s doing an Amateur Hour act in Iowa, and he seems to be trying to convey the impression that he’s doing Sarah Palin a favor by “letting” her speak at an event that wouldn’t be a blip on the radar outside Iowa if Crow hadn’t been billing Palin as the headliner for more than a month!

UPDATE III: From the Wall Street Journal article, which has since been corrected, but which gives this background on the previously reported “cancellation”:

The former governor will now appear at a Friday event in Des Moines sponsored by the group Conservatives4Palin. It is currently scheduled for 8 p.m. at The Machine Shed Restaurant, though the location will probably have to be changed, the person close to Ms. Palin said. Ms. Palin is still scheduled to appear at a Tea Party Express tour stop Monday in New Hampshire.
Ms. Palin may still hold an event Saturday, the person said, though she has no firm plans. It’s also possible she could still attend the Indianola tea party rally, the person said.
The former governor’s team decided to back out Tuesday night after rally organizers re-invited Ms. O’Donnell to speak on stage. Organizers had booked Ms. O’Donnell, who lost her 2010 bid for a U.S. Senate seat from Delaware, to speak but quickly withdrew the invitation in an effort to avoid controversy.
A Tea Party of America leader told Ms. Palin’s aides that the former governor told him to re-invite Ms. O’Donnell, which is not true, the person said, adding that there were also issues over fund-raising and logistical changes that were not approved by Ms. Palin’s team.

If you read that carefully, you see that Palin’s team was signalling that they’d come to Iowa and do their own event, if they had to, rather than to be jacked around about this Indianola rally.

The “amateur hour” aspect shows in the decision to invite — and then dis-invite and re-invite — O’Donnell. What happened, I am told, is that once O’Donnell was announced, the organizers got e-mails from some Tea Party supporters and/or Palin fans who don’t like O’Donnell.

So then it was decfided to tell O’Donnell “no,” but you don’t ever do that.

This is just basic event planning stuff: If someone is announced to speak, but then for some reason either the organizers or the speaker change their minds — “schedule conflict.”

An unfortunate and unspecified mix-up happened, you tell the media, and you “look forward to working with [whoever] in the future.” Both the organizers and the bumped speaker get to save face, and nobody outside the tent knows what the real reason was. It’s just common courtesy.

The last thing you ever want to do in a situation like that is to appear to be publicly trashing somebody you had previously invited to your event. But that’s exactly what it looked like with the on-and-off scheduling of O’Donnell. Somebody failed to think through the possible consquences of making her a late-minute addition to the schedule, and when they started getting blowback, they pulled the trigger too quick — axing O’Donnell without considering the consequences of that, either — and then were forced to re-invite her:

Crow called the handling of O’Donnell a “mistake.”
“I didn’t handle it the way I should have,” he said. “We handled it incorrectly.”

Well, no duh. But Crow is meanwhile trying to spin this as an “aw shucks we’re just ordinary folks” thing, when Crow is the know-it-all self-promoter who got himself into a position where he’s clearly over his head. So when the WSJ quotes “a person close to” Palin as having “cited ‘continual lying’ from event organizers,” you maybe able to make a good guess who they’re talking about.

UPDATE IV: This “clusterf**k” in Indianola gives liberals in the media another chance to dump on Palin, as if this were all somehow her fault, when Palin had nothing to do with what went wrong.

Category: Election 2012, Iowa, Sarah Palin, Tea Party

Comments

55 Responses to “Indianola ‘Clusterf**k’
UPDATE: Iowa Rally Organizer Trashes Palin to NBC News?
UPDATE: Palin Blames O’Donnell?”

elaine
August 31st, 2011 @ 5:14 pm

Egotistical much? Crowe basically said that Palin needs TPA more than TPA needs her. I hardly think so, Mr. Crowe…

Somehow I think Palin would live down this minor annoyance. Not sure Crowe would…
Adjoran
August 31st, 2011 @ 5:42 pm

Wouldn’t the time to check out the organizers and their plans be BEFORE accepting an invitation to speak?

Who is this “Tea Party America” group? Like “Tea Party Express” and “Tea Party Patriots,” there was NO election by actual Tea Party people electing, appointing, forming, or naming any of these alleged “Tea Party” groups. ALL of them just TOOK the name on their own – just like the Democrats in Nevada and New York who ran for office on the TP ticket – and use it for their own purposes.

No wonder the TP has such bad PR, when they are held responsible for every dufus with a microphone or loudspeaker and email list.

Of course, no serious group of people would invite Christine O’Donnell to hawk her book, I mean speak. So we already know we aren’t dealing with Einsteins in Iowa here.
ElizaJewell
August 31st, 2011 @ 5:44 pm

This is just so infuriating because the obvious sources are already using to re-affirm that Palin is a “diva”. At least she is getting a valuable lesson in volunteer organizing prior to declaring…and the labour day event in nh looks much better organized and extremely unlikely to have this type of clusterf**k.
NeoSexist
August 31st, 2011 @ 5:46 pm

This is part of the charm of the TEA party movement. The organizers of
such events are not professional politicians nor particularly media
savvy individuals. They are regular folks trying to do something bigger
than they have ever done before. Then they meet the media juggernaut
with its voracious appetite for immediate information.
NeoSexist
August 31st, 2011 @ 5:46 pm

…and completey “step in it.”
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 5:53 pm

The beauty of this is its all amatuers, unorgnaized newbies…sorts like a church social. Its what makes the Tea Party undestructable. Sure some small clublike screws it up, its not like the GOP…err wait on that.

Tea Partys do your best. You’re gonna fumble every so often but hey, its All American!
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 5:55 pm

Look, I know Tea Party Express gets knocked for their professionalism — they’re run by a guy who’s been a GOP operative since the Reagan years — but here we see the alternative: Bungling amateurism. And so TPX’s professionalism looks a lot better in comparison.

Tea Party Patriots is led by some of the people who organized the very first rallies in February 2009, and while their have been some internal conflicts among them, they at least have a track record for organizing successful rallies.

So both TPX and TPP are organizations I can respect as competent. Same deal with FreedomWorks and AFP — they know what they’re doing. But this deal in Iowa, with Ken Crow swooping down out of the clouds as founder and president of “Tea Party of America” — and people in Iowa are saying to me, “Who the hell is Ken Crow? Never heard of the guy before” — is a classic example of what happens when self-promoters insert themselves into the process.
Garym
August 31st, 2011 @ 6:09 pm

My “political setup” alarm is going off. It started with Rove’s first statement that he thinks her schedule is looking like a campaign schedule. Followed by Sarahpak’s mild anouncement not to listen to so-called insiders. Back to Rove’s over reaction to that statement. Now the is COD speaking at the event or not bullshit. Now the meme that Sarah is not – yes she is speaking at the event, which of course makes her look like a diva, which erodes her support, etc. etc..
Adjoran
August 31st, 2011 @ 6:30 pm

I saw a woman who was spokesperson for TPP on one of the business channels during the debt ceiling showdown. She had absolutely no clue about any of the relevant issues – what default might mean, what credit downgrade might mean, the details of the competing proposals, nothing.

Strikingly ignorant. Now, I don’t expect everyone in a “grassroots” group to be conversant with finance, but if you are going to be the spokesperson for your group on a national business channel, shouldn’t you at least have a nodding acquaintance with the issues and terms involved?

Again, my problem with them AND TPX is the appropriation of the name. At least Freedom Works isn’t pretending to be “THE” Tea Party group, which is the implication of these others. (Still, they plan to protest Romney speaking at a TP event . . . Alinsky must be smiling . . .)

Fortunately, even the “professionals” at TPX are stunningly incompetent. Didn’t they endorse O’Donnell, Buck, Maes, Angle, and Miller? I rest my case.

Unelected self-promoters appointing themselves as spokesmen for “the people” and a true grassroots movement isn’t democratic, it’s the opposite.
PhilipJames
August 31st, 2011 @ 7:13 pm

Sarah Palin will speak, thousands will attend and have a great time, it will get streamed on CSPAN and CNN and FOX and The Right Scoop and others, we will enjoy what Sarah has to say… hopefully there will be some heavy duty things in it… and all this minor baloney will be forgotten.
Don’t forget that this Ken guy is just setting up this event… he has nothing to do with Peter Singleton and the Organize4Palin network in Iowa.
Do we remember the character who organized the first Tea Party Convention in 2009 and all the people who bitched about it being a non-profit, etc.? Sarah said screw it, she went and spoke and we all watched and listened… loved it… and the Tea Party, not the organizer, got national TV coverage and some credibility with that event.
Sarah is speaking at a Tea Party Rally… not a Ken Crow get together. The people are coming for Sarah Palin, not Ken Crow.

Hope the weather is great. Wish I could go… should be fun.
Ft. Ritchie dude
August 31st, 2011 @ 7:15 pm

the professionals have got us almost to the point of no return i like amateurs its better that way chaos always rearranges in a better way than continuing on a glide path its science
Palin's Out for Indiana Tea Party Rally; O'Donnell's Out; Palin's In; Palin's Not Out? | REPUBLICAN REDEFINED
August 31st, 2011 @ 3:24 pm

[…] found themselves drowning in the tide of Palin-hysteria. These folks have ABC, NBC, Fox News, and Stacy McCain blowing up their phones when yesterday their worries were procuring extra folding chairs and […]
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 8:19 pm

If it has Daily Caller or WSJ in it I don’t believe it.
Rob Crawford
August 31st, 2011 @ 8:30 pm

“This “clusterf**k” in Indianola gives liberals in the media another chance to dump on Palin…”

Yep. Lefties like AllahPundit…
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 8:42 pm

We are seeing what a piece of shit Perry and his supporters are. Ken Crow is a trashbag. Perry is a trashbag.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 8:45 pm

We know Palin is running. If Ken Crow, a Perry guy is attacking Palin for his screwups. rsmccain, nice work capturing this Much Ado About Nothing.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 8:45 pm

Interesting … all of this happens the day after it was announced that Gov. Palin will speak at the TP rally in New Hampshire on Monday – once again stepping on Mitt Romney’s toes.

The REAL news is that FreedomWorks and other conservative groups in NH will protest Romney’s speech in NH on Sunday night. Good. This guy’s had nothing to do with the TP movement. And his supporters wonder why people look at him as a phony, political opportunist.
(Update: She’s still on) Sarah Palin’s Participation in Iowa “On Hold” As Event Organizers Prove to Be a Disorganized Mess » Caffeinated Thoughts
August 31st, 2011 @ 4:46 pm

[…] on WHO Radio as I was in my car. I knew this thing was turning out to be a disorganized mess, actually a term from my Army days came to mind (but I’ll keep this blog family friendly), when Christine O’Donnell was invited, disinvited, […]
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 8:49 pm

Palin didn’t step on Romney’s toes. He rescheduled his TP appearance in NH to the previous day so that he could go ahead and be at DeMint’s event on Sunday. Palin is just filling his canceled spot.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 8:52 pm

My point is that this is the second time she’ll be taking the spotlight away from him in NH.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 9:00 pm

Probably won’t be the last, either.
alwaysfiredup
August 31st, 2011 @ 9:00 pm

CO’D hadn’t been invited when Palin accepted. This event has been all about Palin for weeks. Certainly not about TPA or whatever they call themselves.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 9:18 pm

Endorsing conservatives doesn’t equal incompetence. The objective of Tea Partiers and their organizations wasn’t to elect Republicans. We realize that the concept of standing on principles seems quaint, perhaps even cute to almost as many Republicans as Democrats. Both sides will have to learn deal with this “strange phenomenon” one way or another. This upcoming cycle is the last chance for the Republican Establishment to remain relevant in American politics.
The Jerk Part XXIII | Man Are We Screwed
August 31st, 2011 @ 5:37 pm

[…] Don’t call me or Palin paranoid. It’s Rick Perry’s fault. Share this: This entry was posted in The […]
nicholas
August 31st, 2011 @ 9:40 pm

Adobe Walls is on the money. The Tea Party’s focus is no more on the party than it is on the tea. It’s a sea of conservative thinking individuals concerned about the future of the country.

I shed no tears over Mike Castle. In fact, I hold him and those that think like him more responsible for losing the Delaware seat than Christine O’Donnell, who out gained Castle in the primary. If Mike Castle can’t get over himself to support the Republican candidate when it’s not him, then what kind of a man was the guy in the first place? Mike Castle has shown that he was not particularly wedded to the good of the party, or the good of the nation for that matter. There are a surprising number of Republican’s like that in the party hierarchy. The Tea Party is as much a response to them as it is to the abysmal performance of Obama.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 9:43 pm

McCain check this out:

As I jumped in my car yesterday and headed home from work, I immediately recognized the raspy, Texas-seasoned voice coming across Newsradio 1040 WHO. It was Ken Crow, founder of Tea Party of America, the organization sponsoring this weekend’s “Restoring America Event,” which will feature former Alaska Governor and 2008 Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

I recognized Crow’s voice because, while attending the Polk County GOP Summer Picnic on Saturday afternoon, I had been approached by Crow who was hoping to arrange a meeting with Texas Governor Rick Perry, a presidential candidate and one of the speakers at the event. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I was at the event as a Perry volunteer, signing people up to receive additional information about the candidate. Crow, apparently not realizing that I was a nobody who has never even met Perry, let alone someone who has any sway whatsoever with his campaign (in fact, I’ve not endorsed any candidate and I was simply there as a favor to a friend), told me he wanted to meet with the Texas Governor and perhaps endorse him in the near future

http://theiowarepublican.com/2…
Jasmine Clark
August 31st, 2011 @ 9:53 pm

this is so confusing. it’s hard to tell what’s true and what’s rumor!!

i blame tea party of america, i don’t blame christine or sarah.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 10:19 pm

The thing is, Sarah is thought to be running for President, and situations confronting Presidents aren’t always scripted & planned(9/11, Katrina). It’s how the President handles sticky situations. Sarah can call a press conference anytime, 24/7. She should have made her own voice heard, yesterday. Just saying.
Jasmine Clark
August 31st, 2011 @ 10:20 pm

i do hope she speaks out on this.
Iowa Conspiracy Theory : The Other McCain
August 31st, 2011 @ 6:29 pm

[…] of the Tea Party group that is hosting this weekend’s Indianola rally with Sarah Palin. In discussing the controversy surrounding that event, I mentioned earlier one friend’s conspiracy theory that Perry’s campaign was secretly […]
Blame the organizers for the snafu at the Iowa tea-party rally, not Palin « Hot Air
August 31st, 2011 @ 7:13 pm

[…] Ace for more on the politics of inviting O’Donnell and then read R.S. McCain expressing understandable exasperation that a triumphant moment on Saturday would be complicated by leaks and fingerpointing — some […]
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 11:19 pm

Which is why RINO is just another word for Leftist. And I have no use for either.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 11:20 pm

Ken Crow is a Perry guy? Link?
FUBAR In The Cornfields « The Camp Of The Saints
August 31st, 2011 @ 7:32 pm

[…] Stacy has been continuously updating his initial report here. […]
Mary
August 31st, 2011 @ 11:44 pm

Oh, good grief, I’m tired of this low-level carping and sniping. I want to hear what Palin has to say, especially before Obama and the Republicans speak the following week. I don’t give a damn that the organizers of this event are stoopid fools who couldn’t organize a bake sale. It’s a stage for her to speak, no more, no less. And I for one, want to hear what she has to say.
Anonymous
August 31st, 2011 @ 11:56 pm

ahhh Adjoran, Palin didn’t know about COD until after the fact….that’s the problem (COD was put in the last minute…a big no-no). If someone is a keynote speaker, it’s considered professional to tell them who’s on the speaker’s docket before they agree.

As to Crow….quote the raven NEVERMORE
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 12:17 am

RS McCain: “How did Palin’s aides learn about this? From “event organizers”? Why would Palin’s aide then tell this to a reporter? Does the aide think that making O’Donnell the villain will make Palin look good?”

Do you have any proof that anyone on Palin’s small ‘team’ actually told any reporter anything. Do you have a sourced quote from anyone in the Palin camp or are you just going on second hand info and speculation?

I have yet to see these Palin aides named in any article or blog post all day. Are we sure they ever said any of this or anything at all for that matter?

Hey RS, check with your Palin ‘source’. Heh!
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 1:22 am

None of it came from the Palin camp. That’s not how they do their business. And it’s about the most “leak-proof” team there is.
When are people going to learn not to trust “anonymous sources” or “sources close to Palin”?

The idea that Palin needs that tea party group more than they need her is laughable. They sure folded quickly enough when the Palin team challenged them and threatened to cancel. Crow wears a big hat but he’s a fake cowboy with no horse.
Why Did Ken Crow Make Such a Mess Out of the Iowa Rally? | A Time For Choosing
August 31st, 2011 @ 9:41 pm

[…] Stacy McCain has been all over what he calls the “Indianola ‘Clusterf**k’” today and has added another post to the mix, along with this […]
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 1:43 am

COD thought she’d gain attention and credibility by sharing the stage with Palin?

It was reportedly alright with Palin that COD spoke at the rally and apparently NOT alright that the organizers then turned around and canceled COD after they got some negative emails. Sarah would never have done that.

But then the organizers didn’t think there should be an objection from Palin if COD shared the stage with her without Sarah’s approval? Please try to tell me that this was just ignorance on Crow’s part!

Nevermore is right!
Why Did Ken Crow Make Such a Mess Out of the Iowa Rally? | Congress Arizona
August 31st, 2011 @ 10:09 pm

[…] Stacy McCain has been all over what he calls the “Indianola ‘Clusterf**k’” today and has added another post to the mix, along with this […]
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 2:54 am

So this proves that she is running, right? If she were not running, would she care about the who else spoke?

Once she formally declares, she will not need to rely on organizations like this. She will be able to control the details because the events will be hers.
Dbntx
September 1st, 2011 @ 3:13 am

A picture is worth a thousand words. Perry and Crow shaking hands:http://theothermccain.com/2011/08/31/iowa-conspiracy-theory/ Think about it for a minute: A Rick Perry supporter is heading up a Tea Party rally where Sarah Palin is set to give a big speech – chaos erupts and he points his finger at Sarah Palin? Politics is a dirty business and I for one am SICK of the good ole boys network-politics as usual-RINOs! America needs Palin to run!
BBQ
September 1st, 2011 @ 3:36 am

Perry conspiracy? Occam’s razor, people. The event was a fuck up… because it was poorly organized. COD tried to exploit past Palin good wishes to finagle a speaking slot, ambitious organizers got greedy and it blew up. This ain’t rocket science.
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 5:31 am

Iowa needs to go to the back of the line.
DMac8889
September 1st, 2011 @ 9:29 am

This was a scam all the way through. Ken Crow was contacted by the Perry people to make a clusterF of this and put Sarah Palin and the Tea Party in a bad light. It is all overblown nonsense that the Perry people knew the MSM would love to eat up. Anyone who believes Crow is on the up and up and was just Green is in serious denial. Perry is counting on the news now to just carry her appearance as controversial and not report a word she states. No different than every other speech she has given over the last three years. They never report what she states unless it is controversial. That’s why the people in the know love her and the people who only get the sound bites don’t.
DMac8889
September 1st, 2011 @ 9:32 am

I will be going and will have a good time. She always gives out great stuff, but I never hold my breath waiting for a fair response from the media.
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 12:03 pm

Adjoran, LIGHTEN UP!! You’re treating all of this like it’s an effin’ State Dinner or State Visit of a foreign leader and you’re in charge of the seating arrangements! Well, of course, you’re not “in charge;” you’re just the “SELF-APPOINTED” critic (sounding a lot like that idiot Crow that everyone’ s rightfully trashing!).

My take on this whole thing is two-fold: (1) There’s STILL no such thing as “bad publicity!” and (2) Sarah Palin will rise (indeed, has already arisen!) above the fray. When “Mama” Grizzly comes back in the house, she reprimands her little boys to be quiet and STOP fighting, or “Mama will turn of the TV for a week!!”

BTW, Christine WHO?
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 12:13 pm

Beautiful, Nicholas!! Well stated – and a rallying cry which most of us in “the Movement” can really get behind! In fact, ever since the 2008 election, I’ve been truly exercised by and disgusted with the GOP Establishment and the entire RNC Party structure (on the national scene), while simultaneously feeling the same way about our own State (CA – that says it all, of course!) organization as well! My “passion,” if you will is reserved for individual candidates and the TP Movement over all. In time, as another poster has opined, the GOP may go the way of the Whigs and be totally irrelevant in naitonal (or even local) politics as the years roll on…
Anonymous
September 1st, 2011 @ 12:27 pm

For Palin to call a press conference for something as minor and low-level as this – and to say, exactly, what?!? – would be ailly, unprofessional and possibly counterproductive. Let her stayabove the fray and let the children sort it out in the sandbox!