Many insiders are quickly coming to the collective recognition that Sarah Palin will not be running. Therefore, will her appearance in Iowa be merely a PR campaign to gain more $$$ for SarahPac and her support of other worthy candidates? How does one reconcile the belief in a noble and altruistic Palin with the fact that her actions might be more about fundraising rather than those of pure altruism? Her “Iowa Tour Bus” might be a huge mistake if it is seen by many Iowans as stealing the spotlight from candidates who have already invested heavily in their ground games.
(Politico)…Sarah Palin is making a surprise trip to Iowa this weekend, just in time to catch the political spotlight trained on the Ames straw poll. In an email to supporters Wednesday, Palin said she’s accepted an invitation “to meet folks at the Iowa State Fair inDes Moines this week.” Palin doesn’t say which day she plans to appear at the fair, which coincides with the straw poll but is a separate event about half an hour away. An Iowa GOP activist who is close to Palin, Becky Beach, told the Des Moines Register the visit was slated for Friday. 
Palin writes that the trip marks the latest installment in her “One Nation” bus tour. She spent a week in late May touring East Coast historical sites on the last leg of the bus tour. She’s been in Alaska since then, except for a high-profile trip to Pella, Iowa, in June, when she attended the local premiere of a documentary about her political rise.
Palin has an active organization of volunteer supporters in Iowa who believe she’s going to seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. While there will be a write-in option on the straw poll ballot, Palin’s supporters aren’t mounting a campaign for write-in votes like Perry’s supporters are. Peter Singleton, the full-time volunteer head of Palin’s Iowa grassroots network, told POLITICO he was “delighted” to hear about Palin’s state fair plans Wednesday. “It’s a perfect thing for her to come to,” he said. “She will meet a lot of Iowans — everyday folks. That’s how you campaign here, and no one is better at grassroots retail campaigning than Governor Palin. She just connects well with people of all sorts.”
This latest move follows a pattern of political scene-stealing for Palin. Her last bus-tour swing wound up in New Hampshire the same day Mitt Romney was officially announcing his candidacy there. Her Pella visit came the day after Michele Bachmann announced her presidential campaign in Waterloo, Iowa. She’s scheduled to be back in Iowa next month, when she’s agreed to keynote a tea party group’s Sept. 3 event. Asked by Fox News’s Sean Hannity about her presidential intentions last week, she said, “Getting closer to making a decision, of course, for legal reasons, for practical reasons. But I still haven’t made up my mind yet, Sean.”Naturally, Palin’s email about the trip to the fair includes a dig at President Obama. She writes, “I’m also excited to try some of that famous fried butter-on-a-stick, fried cheesecake-on-a-stick, fried Twinkies, etc. I’ll enjoy them in honor of those who’d rather make us just ‘eat our peas’!”
(I can forgive you anything Sarah…just keep sayin’ stuff like the above.)