Sarah Palin was in San Jose Thursday night for a Q&A session with supporters at the Center for the Performing Arts and a fundraising dinner at the Marriott Hotel. The events were hosted by the Liberty and Freedom Foundation. At both events she gave her signature talking points about how an extreme liberal agenda, aided by the liberal media threaten America. She went on to condemn “Obamacare” and the shovel-ready projects that were supposed to be at the center of the stimulus package. “We know what they were shoveling, and it wasn’t asphalt,” she quipped.

Palin is not as popular in California as she is in other parts of the country, though that didn’t seem to faze here. She felt that she was right at home in “a state that puts a mama grizzly on its flag.” Of course, no one pointed out to her that the grizzly bear disappeared from the California wilds in 1922.

Tickets for the Q&A ranged from $25 to $199, the reception at the Marriott cost $500, and the chicken dinner that followed cost $350.

The Q&A was the most widely attended event. Organizers expected about 1,800 people to show up, though the stadium seats 2,665. They later claimed that only 1,400 did come, though other sources say that attendance may have been significantly lower than that. In comparison, the Dalai Lama was seen by 12,000 locals during his visit this week. Though the Palin event conflicted with the Steinbeck Center event honoring Michael Moore, it is unlikely that anyone was torn apart deciding which one to attend.

Among the prominent no-shows were candidates Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, both of whom said that they had previous engagements. Whitman and Fiorina have also bowed out of a weekend event with Palin in Orange County. While Palin endorses Fiorina, recent polling shows that 58 percent of registered voters and two-thirds of independent voters do not look favorably at Palin and would be less inclined to vote for a candidate endorsed by her. That may be too much of a risk in such tightly contested races.
Read More at ABC 7.
Read More at NBC Bay Area.
Read More at The Mercury News.