Sarah Palin is urging Republican presidential candidates to take part in the Newsmax ION Television 2012 Presidential Debate moderated by Donald Trump.
The former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate made her endorsement in an interview that aired Wednesday night on the Fox Business Network. Palin’s endorsement is the latest high-profile conservative to support the debate set for Dec. 27.
"I think candidates should not be afraid in front of the nation no matter who the host of the debate is,” Palin said. “What is a bit appealing about this idea of Trump hosting a debate is, consider the diverse audience that perhaps he can attract. It's important that independents and those who are not obsessed with inside-baseball partisan politics, which is most of us, we'd like to hear more of the message of each one of these candidates and perhaps Donald Trump will be able to attract a diverse demographic that maybe has not been as interested in this horse race thus far.
"America needs to wake up to what is going on under Obama's socialist policies and how he will bankrupt the country. I'm looking at the debate as a positive thing because of that fact."
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Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition is on board, along with Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), and the American Conservative Union (ACU), chaired by Al Cardenas, which sponsors the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. ATR and ACU are sponsors for the debate.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum have confirmed their participation.
Palin also said former Govs. Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman were wrong to turn down the debate and urged them to change their minds and join the debate, Huffington Post reported.
Palin said she would not be endorsing any candidate "before Iowa," referring to the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. But the former governor, who waited until October to announce she would not be a candidate in the 2012 race, also told Fox Business Network that Gingrich has “been a bit more successful” than Mitt Romney in courting party activists.
“He has been engaged in that movement most recently in order for them to hear his solutions and there’s been some forgiveness then on the part of Tea Party Patriots for some of the things in Gingrich’s past,” she said, according to an advance transcript of the interview provided by the network. “Romney and others need to reach out and convince Tea Party Patriots and constitutional conservatives that he truly believes in smaller, smarter government.”
Gingrich, she acknowledged, can’t sell himself as an outsider. But she said that during his time in Washington “some of the things he’s done have been good.”
“He helped balance the budget under Bill Clinton. That is what we need today,” she said.
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