Palin fuels speculation of presidential bid

REPUBLICAN Sarah Palin has said she is still considering a potential 2012 presidential run, though her daughter said she has already made up her mind and is keeping the decision secret for now.

Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, attended the premiere of a flattering documentary about her, The Undefeated, at the opera house in the small Iowa town of Pella.

Palin has carefully left the door open to a campaign. Her appearance in Iowa was likely to encourage those who think the former Alaska governor still might jump into a wide-open race.

After the premiere, Palin spoke to the crowd of 300 who attended and said the documentary helps set the record straight about her background, which she believes has been distorted by the US media.

Her visit came a day after Michele Bachmann, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives who is often compared to Palin, launched her own presidential campaign in Iowa, and at a time when many candidates, even President Barack Obama, are touring the early voting state to seek support.

The Midwestern state holds the first contest on the road to the Republican 2012 presidential nomination.

Palin’s daughter Bristol, a mini-celebrity in her own right, added to the political buzz by saying on Fox News that her mother had made up her mind already about whether to seek the nomination and that she would like to see Sarah Palin run.

“She definitely knows,” Bristol Palin said when asked whether her mother had made up her mind. She added that the decision would remain within the family for now.

Palin brushed aside her daughter’s comments as she arrived for the premiere, saying: “It’s a tough decision, it’s a big decision to decide whether to run for office or not. I’m still contemplating.”

And after the movie, Palin said she still has plenty of time to decide whether to make the commitment.

However, she did add: “You don’t need a title, you don’t need a political position” to be involved, a potential signal that she may be leaning against a run.

Palin launched a “One Nation” bus tour in late May of the eastern US and plans are said to be in the works for another tour at some point. But she has almost no campaign infrastructure, while the race to be the Republican candidate to challenge Obama is now well under way.

If Palin were to run, she and Bachmann would likely be competing for the same social conservative voters who are powerful in Iowa, whose caucuses next February are the first voting contest of the 2012 nomination battle.

The biopic premiered in Pella is likely to keep Palin in the spotlight. The documentary traces her rise from mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, the battle she waged to win election as the state governor and then charted her time as John McCain’s 2008 running mate. Palin is a key narrator in the movie, which is based on her “Going Rogue” memoir.

With her massive name recognition, Palin can probably afford to skip the Republicans’ August straw poll in Iowa, said Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. That poll is a gauge of who will win the Iowa caucuses.

Palin should have made up her mind by Labour Day in early September on whether to run.

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reported that Peter Singleton, a California lawyer who has spent the past eight months organising for her in Iowa, has said Palin will run and conduct an “unorthodox, grassroots campaign the likes of which you’ve never seen”.