Sarah Palin criticises Obama and Republican rivals

US politician tells Tea Party rally the president is adrift and accuses some of her rivals of ‘crony capitalism’ Sarah Palin spent the Labour Day holiday weekend fuelling speculation she may yet run for president, blasting Barack Obama and Republican rivals on the latest stops on her bus tour of key election states. As the crowd braved driving rain at a Tea Party rally in Indianola, Iowa, on Saturday Palin attacked the “crony capitalism” she said was destroying the US and a “permanent political class” that reinforced it. But she stopped short of answering the big question about whether the purpose of her tour was a run at the White House or an increase in book sales. On Monday Palin will speak in Manchester, New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary vote for presidential candidates. Palin has said she will announce by the end of this month whether she will join the race for the White House in 2012. Palin’s latest push comes days before the official Republican candidates hold their next televised debate. This is the second Republican candidate debate and the first since Rick Perry, Texas governor and a Tea Party favourite, joined the race. In Iowa 2,000 people travelled to a muddy field to hear Palin attack Obama. “Barack Obama promised to cut the deficit in half. Instead he turned around and tripled it,” she said. “Barack Obama is adrift. He doesn’t make sense. “Who wants to win the future by investing in harebrained ideas [like] solar panels and really fast trains?” The ideas were “nonstarters”, she said. “All aboard Obama’s bullet train to bankruptcy,” she added. But she also made digs at her potential Republican rivals. Obama was set to raise a billion dollars for his reelection campaign, she said, but Republican candidates “also raise mammoth amounts of cash”. “We need to ask them too, what, if anything, do their donors expect from their investments,” Palin said. “Our country can’t afford more trillion-dollar thank-you notes to campaign backers.” Perry, seen as the frontrunner in the Republican race, is a career politician who has been accused of using his position to help his donors. “There is a name for this,” Palin said. “It’s called corporate crony capitalism. It’s not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts … and influence peddling and corporate welfare.” Sarah Palin United States Republicans US politics Tea Party movement Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.