India: Palin's India trip

The Times of India

Palin's India trip build-up to Prez bid?
By Chidanand Rajghatta

America's political theater is spewing snickers and sarcasm over Sarah Palin's proposed trip to India next month amid uncertainty over whether she will run for the White House in 2012.

While state governors bidding for Presidency typically make overseas trips to shore up their foreign policy credentials, Palin, ex-governor of Alaska and former vice-presidential candidate, is famously shy of foreign travel.
She got a passport only in 2006, and before signing up with John McCain for the Republican ticket in 2008, she had travelled overseas only once, to visit US troops in the Middle East.

Since then, she has gone abroad twice, travelling to Hong Kong in 2009 for a conference where she spoke about US-China relations, and then going to Haiti on an earthquake relief mission.

But in a huge leap of faith and distance, Palin is scheduled to be in New Delhi on March 19 for the annual India Today conclave, where she will give a speech on "My Vision for America". Political pundits are divided on whether that stab at policy articulation by the controversial politician widely perceived as having a limited worldview is meant to signal a Presidential run in 2012.

Some analysts think the trip actually indicates Palin will not be running. In a blog post headlined "Palin going for the outsourced vote?,"A ndrew Cline, a leader writer for a conservative New Hampshire paper, said he has a hard time believing that "someone who makes a trip to India a higher priority than a trip to New Hampshire is a serious presidential candidate."

New Hampshire is a key state in the Presidential stakes because it traditionally holds the first primary in the race to the White House. Palin has not visited New Hampshire after her 2008 vice-presidential bid.
"Chalk this up as one more bit of evidence that she's probably not running,"Cline wrote.

While some arch conservatives are dismayed that Palin is not making a call on a White House run, the former governor is being pilloried for her India sortie, with comedians and cartoonists having a field day.

A Huffington Post cartoon by Sunil Adam, editor of the 'Indian-American', wondered why Palin is going to India, with one character replying, "Probably because she can"t see it from her house in Alaska."Palin had been mocked by pundits for declaring during her 2008 run that Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her foreign policy experience

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