At the annual Rolling Thunder event in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, Sarah Palin will kick off a week-long tour of U.S. historical sites. She will be accompanied by her husband Todd and daughter Piper. “The tour will originate in Washington, D.C., and will proceed north up the east coast,” reads a statement from her PAC. “More information will follow.”
Palin has no scheduled speeches or rallies, though there may be some events she’s already been invited to along the way that she will participate in, according to Tim Crawford, her PAC treasurer. “It’s a learning tour,” Crawford says, “a tour of getting back to places that were key to the founding of this nation. There are a number of places from revolutionary war on that are significant to our nations history in the northeast.”
The tour, combined with a forthcoming independently produced film about her tenure as Alaska’s governor, is sure to drum up speculation that Palin is planning to run for President, something that would radically shakeup the current field of Republican contenders. She has always said that she would be an unconventional candidate and the newly announced tour is certainly unconventional. One can only imagine the mob scene when the bus, emblazoned with “Join the Fundamental Restoration of America,” pulls up to Gettysburg with hundreds of reporters in tow.
Crawford would not confirm any of stops aside from Rolling Thunder. But north of Washington, there are some very obvious sites of historical significance. A few possibilities: Antietam in Maryland, Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, the site where Washington crossed the Delaware River, the Liberty Bell and Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, the Boston Tea Party and – perhaps most important politically – Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where Paul Revere delivered his warning of the coming British invasion. We’ll soon know whether Palin’s trip is also an indication of major changes to come.
