Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ventured to The Woodlands, a planned community about 30 miles north of Houston, to address a crowd of more than 1,000 people in support of the candidacy of Ted Cruz for United States Senate.
Palin speaks for 20 minutes in Texas
Dressed in a dark colored shirt, miniskirt, and cowboy boots (a gift of Texas Gov. Rick Perry,) Palin, having been introduced by Cruz himself, addressed the crowd in The Woodlands for about 20 minutes. According to the YouTube video of the speech, Palin seemed relaxed and in her element, despite the East Texas heat and humidity, something she noted during her remarks. She made her often repeated joke about Texas being "Alaska's little sister state," something the crowd seemed to not mind at all. She noted the similarities between Alaska and the Lone Star State (with the exception of the weather) including what she termed wide open spaces and a regard for freedom and free market capitalism.
Palin touts Cruz and lays into Obama
According to the Houston Chronicle, Palin praised Cruz as being a friend of those who cling to God, their guns, and the Constitution. She also mocked President Obama for suggesting that Texas might become a battleground state. She made a variant of that often-used "snowball in Hell" retort with an arresting image of an Alaska blizzard along the Brazos.
Palin and the Chick-fil-A controversy
The Houston Chronicle noted that during her speech, Palin made a reference to the Chick-fil-A controversy, in which the president of that food chain expressed opposition to same-sex marriage. True to her word, according to Politico, she and her husband Todd stopped by a Chick-fil-A store after the rally on their way to the airport for some chicken dinner and some photo ops. Palin suggested that Cruz's supporters visit Chick-fil-A likewise as an expression of support of what the restaurant's president called "the biblical definition of the family unit." She had previously denounced Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's remarks about the fast food chain and "Chicago values" as "thuggery."
David Dewhurst responds
According to Hot Air, Dewhurst had noted that non-Texan politicians such as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Sen. Jim Demint, R-S.C., Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., as well as Palin and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum were supporting Cruz, despite the fact, as he put it, their states had not the economic robustness of Texas. Hot Air notes that Mike Huckabee, a non-Texan who was once governor of Arkansas, is a warm supporter of Dewhurst.
Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network.
