Palin sets sights on new push for White House

This week America will resound to the deafening roar of automatic rifle fire being discharged by Palin across its airwaves. The first volley was let off on Tuesday in the form of an hour-long interview with Oprah Winfrey. Wednesday morning will open with a round of sniper fire that will rattle on through the week: a multi-part conversation with the doyenne of television interviewers, ABC News’s Barbara Walters.

Then, on Thursday the heavy artillery will be rolled on to the battlefields of small-town America when Palin takes her campaign bus — correction: book tour — to such iconic heartland destinations as Grand Rapids, Michigan; Noblesville, Indiana; and Cincinnati, Ohio.

So, was Palin reloading for the next presidential race in 2012, Oprah Winfrey asked her, getting straight to it. “I am concentrating on 2010, making sure we have the issues tackled for all Americans,” was Palin’s non-reply.  “But would you have told me even if you were thinking of it,” hit back Winfrey. “No, I would not.” So that is clear then.

“I can’t wait to see you!” Palin tells her 990,198 Facebook supporters, exhorting them to turn up at her book signings. Such a folksy approach suffuses the book, which hit the shops on Tuesday, from the dedication on the first page: “To Patriots – who love the US as much as I do.”

The former governor of Alaska and mayor of Wasilla adopted the same touchy-feely tone in her engagement with Winfrey, a media event that had the potential to be spikey, given Winfrey’s highly public backing for Barack Obama in the last year’s US presidential election.

As she lays out her life story in 413 pages, Palin is profuse in her praise for two father figures who, she says, have been highly influential: Ronald Reagan and God. And if that isn’t a political message honed expressly for the party faithful who will chose the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, what is?