Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin tried to rally conservatives on Saturday night at a national convention of the “Tea Party” movement.
Speaking in Nashville convention, Mrs Sarah Palin called President Obama’s 2011 budget “immoral” and said it would raise the US debt.
Sarah Palin - Former vice presidential candidate
“Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at great risk,” she said. “To win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”
Palin sought to hold Washington accountable as she took on a number of issues, including national security, the economy, and the recent election of Republican Scott Brown to the Massachusetts Senate seat left vacant by the late Ted Kennedy.
“We need a foreign policy that distinguishes America’s friends from her enemies, and recognises the true nature of the threats that we face,” Mrs Palin said.
All this inspired President Obama to tell a Democratic National Committee fund-raising dinner on Thursday night that his administration in its first year had “averted another depression. We broke the back of the recession,” and that “the economy is growing again.”
The three-day event had been plagued by infighting, pullouts and criticism of tickets costing more than $500. Tea partiers grabbed headlines last year with often highly charged protests against Obama’s healthcare reform drive, a $787 billion economic stimulus package and other initiatives.
Mrs Palin was reportedly paid $100,000 for the 40-minute speech.