Palin Thrills Wet Tea Party Crowd in Iowa

Sarah Palin kept her presidential ambitions under wraps today in a 40-minute speech to thousands of very wet Iowans who had diligently waited for her in steady rain, the Des Moines Register reports. "We’re here because America is at a tipping point," Palin said at the Des Moines Tea Party rally, and told them the nation's crisis was worse than "a Midwest summer storm" that eventually "moves on." Later she told a reporter that she's happy with the current GOP slate but thought "there's room for more."

"I’m still not ready to make any kind of an announcement," Palin said as she signed a gun at the rope line after the speech. "I’m still trying to figure it out, if it’s the right thing to do." Queried about Christine O'Donnell's invitation—then dis-invitation, re-invitation, and final dis-invitation—to warm up Palin's Iowa crowd, Palin said, "Oh, I didn't organize this, so I don't know." (More Sarah Palin 2012 stories.)