Palin rallies conservatives against health reform

Sarah Palin urged thousands of conservative tea party activists to kick Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats in Congress out of office in the upcoming national election.

The wind whipped US flags behind the former Alaska governor as she stood on a makeshift stage in the Nevada desert, holding a microphone and her notes as she spoke to the cheering crowd in Mr Reid’s hometown. She told them Mr Reid, fighting for re-election, is “gambling away our future.

“Someone needs to tell him, this is not a crapshoot,” Mrs Palin said.

About 7,000 people streamed into tiny Searchlight, a former mining town 60 miles south of Las Vegas, bringing American flags, Don’t Tread on Me signs and outspoken anger toward Mr Reid, President Barack Obama and the health care overhaul.

Mrs Palin told them the big-government, big-debt spending spree of the Senate majority leader, Mr Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is over.

“You’re fired!” Mrs Palin said.

A string of polls has shown Mr Reid is vulnerable in politically moderate Nevada after pushing Mr Obama’s agenda in Congress. His standing has also been hurt by Nevada’s double-digit unemployment and record foreclosure and bankruptcy rates.

The Searchlight native responded with sarcasm to the large crowd gathered in the hardscrabble town of about 1,000 he grew up in.

“I’m happy so many people came to see my hometown of Searchlight and spend their out-of-state money, especially in these tough economic times,” Mr Reid said in a statement released through his Senate campaign. “This election will be decided by Nevadans, not people from other states who parachuted in for one day to have a tea party.”

Traffic on a highway leading into the town was backed up more than two miles as people gathered for the rally, which kicks off a 42-city bus tour that ends in Washington on April 15, the deadline for filing federal tax returns.

The tea party movement is a far-flung coalition of conservative groups angered by Washington spending, rising taxes and the growth and reach of government.

It takes its name from the Boston Tea Party in 1773, when colonists dumped tea off English ships to protest what they considered unfair taxation by the British crown.

“Some of you are registered Republicans. Some of you are ... what we used to call Reagan Democrats,” Mrs Palin said. “And some of you are like so many of my friends and my family, including my own husband, just independent, not registered in any party.”

The event took place just days after the historic health care vote that ushered in near-universal medical coverage and divided Congress and the nation.

The vote was followed by reports of threats and vandalism aimed at some Washington politicians, mostly Democrats who supported the new law.