memorial day. on this national holiday, a heavy rush of politics. sarah palin's mystery tour rolled into town. we don't know when she will appear because her aides will not tell us. her stops included ft. mchenry and she's being cagey on the subject of whether it's a rolling civic lesson or a 2012 campaign. >> i believe there are many more people out there to add. competition breeds success. i would hope that there is going to be debate. >> also this day, president obama leads the traditional wreath laying at arlington national cemetery and announces a major change in his national security team. with america fighting three wars, we'll explain whether the new war council signals a new approach. >> i'm announcing my choice for the successors today because it transition must be seamless and we stay focused on the security challenges before us. >> but, first up, like it or not, she's back. sarah palin is on a bus tour that mixes landmarks of america's past and battlegrounds of her political presence. new hampshire and iowa, for example, and on this day george washington's mt. vern joon and turning point of the civil war. some of you are rolling your ice. i've been getting tweets all day. there is no question that governor palin is a master of media manipulation. but spend a little time in this little town and you'll get a taste of the palin factor. families waiting for hours, some of them eight or nine hours, 100-degree heat here to get a glimpse at the biggest remaining wild card in the 2012 presidential race. >> i think she is gives a perspective that is for most average americans. i don't think that she seems to have lost touch with what most people are concerned about right now. i think some of the candidates are not able to connect as well as she can. >> i like her. i would just like to see her. i have a lot of respect for her. i have a lot of respect for her christian values and her convictions. she seems like a family person. >> now, governor palin likes to call us the lame stream media and her organization refuses to give us a schedule of her planned route or stops. it makes it a little fun, or frustrating to cover her. i call it fun. she did allow a fox news crew to follow her. has she privately assured fox that she is not running and that this is about self-promotion or does the network have a different standard that it had in place for newt gingrich or mike huckabee. let's dissect her motives. eric ericson and susan and john. congresswoman, to you first, is she running or is she just trying to help her image? >> well, who really knows what goes on in the mind of governor palin? if she did s not running, she's really putting together a brilliant strategy for reminding everyone of a very critical time that she is extremely relevant. you showed pictures of people standing out in the heat and that she's the one person that connects. i would say i don't think she's running but tomorrow she may prove me wrong. what she is doing is running to be one of the most influential republicans in these united states and what that means is whoever is the republican nominee or all of those people running for the nomination will be wanting her attention and her endorsement. >> so john, i'm surrounded by families here. some of them have been here for eight or nine hours. you know this state well. you advised rick santorum who is exploring a republican presidential candidacy and is most likely to run. what is the palin factor? how much does somebody like governor santorum, governor pawlenty, how much are they overshadowed and are they overshadowed by palin the noncandidate? >> it's how much oxygen can she pull out of a room. you have to remember that the presidential race starts in places like iowa, new hampshire, south carolina where people don't want to feel like it's barnum and bailey's promotions coming to town. they can kick the tires and feel genuine. i agree with susan. if she is doing to this to look back with pause and feel that this was just a little too planned and a little bit too sterile in some sense. >> it's a great point john makes. because while we were here today, the county republican official came by and said, i have no idea. they haven't called and told me. you might hear families chanting around me saying, run, sarah run. do the rules apply to her? can these people power her candidacy? she doesn't have to tell the new hampshire chairman when she's coming or the iowa chairman when she's coming? >> i think the rules do apply and i believe if she decides to run i guess you could say the campaign rules. i think the rumor mill between republicans can undo sarah palin over time when you have bitter, angry parties who feel like they make money off the campaign season. is she there to help herself or the republicans? i would say that i think it's interesting on the issue of fox news, considering the news of all of the pressure on the other republicans, including mike huckabee, that we haven't seen this about sarah palin suggests to me that she may not be running. >> i have to take that -- greta is a friend of mine. she gets an interview with governor palin. we can't even get the schedule. that's her choice. she can make that choice from now until the end of time. she can campaign how ever she wants and we have to deal with it. i remember covering ross perot in 1992. it's not their job to help us. but to the question of fox news, congressman, i assume she's told them that they are not running because i don't believe they would allow a double standard like. this don't you agree? >> it's hard to say. she's obviously a big draw. she's extremely popular. it's quite an exclusive to be able to follow her on this mystery tour, know where she's going, and to be able to get the interviews and sound bites that she is providing them in terms of change and all of those things that really are news leading up to her announcement. >> all right. as we continue our conversation, we're told by our political producer that governor palin -- and i don't want to excite the people around here -- that she's left her hotel and that she's on the move. we think she's going to buy running sox for piper in her tour bus. john, i want to ask you about just the timing and a political sensitivity issue. she was clearly well received on the national mall. she's been well received everywhere that she has gone. but there have been some people who have complained about using memorial day, for example, a day where we honor the fallen, the legislative director for rolling thunder, said i'm very not appreciative of the way that she came in here. she wanted to come on the ride, she should have come on the back. she rode out on the front. how careful does she need to be during these very important days? >> i think she needs to be careful but i want to be careful not to hit her with this. if she's promoting america and what america needs to be, she needs to depict national holidays like that and it's an important factor. if all of a sudden people see her as candidate palin and see her missing the fox greenville debate, see her not showing up for the upcoming cnn political debate in new hampshire, those types of things and instead just showing up for events that look liar they are pr events, then i think she has a problem. >> i want ya'll to listen to her here. during the trip to ft. mchenry, star spangled banner. she said that she's certain that the republican field will get bigger. >> you know, it's a continued process of contemplating what it is that we have in front of us as a family and what the build looks like and it's going to be a changed up build between now and when deadlines finally arrive for declaring. we hear rumors that governor perry perhaps is thinking about running. >> eric, she went on to say that she thinks the better the competition, the better the debate, the more healthy the competition. she said that she's contemplating it and that she on her own brought up governor perry of texas. >> he's changed his tune in the last few weeks to definitely not to i'm thinking about it. we'll see. by and large, i'm of the opinion that we may have a few wild cards get in. perry and palin are the only two that could be consequential should they get in. but i'm still not convinced that sarah palin is not going to get in. i think she's angling to be a king maker here. if she does get in, she will probably be the king maker in that process as well. but the fascination of sarah palin is what fascinates me, that had anybody else done something like this, there wouldn't be media coverage of that. >> i agree 100% and, again, we're getting criticized for being here because she's not a declared candidate. as you criticize those of us trying to cover her, i would ask you to look around and i mean this with no disrespect. i do not believe that if people thought they were passing through town, didn't know exactly where they were going to come, that they would be out here in these conditions like this. >> right. there's no way they would. >> run, sarah run. so john, someone who has run a number of campaigns and likely to be involved in this next one, what does she bring or would she bring to the field that it lacks? would she just be somebody that she ran as a vice presidential nominee among republican voters or is there something from an issues perspective or message perspective that she has that no one else does? >> i think there's an excitement in the way that she carries herself and the fact that she's a woman and it's great for the republican party in which she brings along. however, if you go back to the republican debate, if you remember, she did one debate and this time she'll have to do 15 debates. people will have a much better understanding and not necessarily that she did in alaska but what does she plan for this country and what issues is she going to concentrate on and what issues does she have? at this point she's the best of all worlds. she doesn't have to answer tough questions yet and that can change things drastically. >> congresswoman, as someone who has been through a number of elections, if we look at the last campaign and we know she's popular in small, rural towns where people tend to be more conservative, if you go into this state, if you just go to east of the philadelphia suburbs, independents and moderate republicans, like where you were elected from, that's where you see negatives in her standing. what would she have to do? what should she be doing if she wants to repair her image with those people, where she has a bit of -- what should she be doing? >> she's pretty popular in statin island and certain areas of new york. part of the appeal when you ask what does she bring to this race? people feel that she understands their concerns. what she needs to do is continue to get deeper into the articulation of those concerns but the one thing that she really needs to do is to then propose workable solutions, were she to be president of the united states. she's connected on feeling the pain. what can she do to alleviate that pain as president of the united states from statutory legislative or regulatory standpoint. >> we're going to ask susan, eric, and john to stand by. ahead, we'll compare governor palin's message with two other gop contenders. >> it was about defending and protecting, liberty then. it's about defending and protecting liberty today. let us never forget that. live free or die. and next, a democratic indumb bent by the numbers. he has clear when it comes to job and what you pay at the pump. 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because of the economy. so ultimately, this is going to come down to the economy and whether in fact republicans came up with a candidate who has some of the kind of excitement that sarah palin has, that brings the substantive that voters want ultimately. >> let's talk about that. both the president's challenge and the republican challenge when it comes to that, because we can judge it on how people view the president's handling of the economy or a very good historical marker to look at. especially when you have an incumbent being the mayor or president of the united states it's the country. how are things going in the country today? 39% say that they are going well and 60% say that they are going badly. if you go back to this time in 1991, the last incumbent president to lose the re-election bid, 53% said that the country was going well, things were going well. so george h.w. bush had a much better right track, wrong track than president obama does but can he change the narrative about that and do you see anyone in the republican side making a powerful economic case? >> i don't know whether president obama can change that or not. the economy, there are all sorts of signs of the economy slowing again. fragile recovery, no serious expectation among economists that unemployment will get a below 8% by the time of the election next year. we're likely to be in a heavy slog. whether the voters will forgive president obama and say that it's not his fault, i think only time will tell but i see no indications that he's going to get a lift on the economic front. but that still doesn't mean that the democrats came up with a candidate and turned out to be a very, very effective candidate so far, none of the republicans in the field has struck most voters at being another bill clinton. someone who wins a couple of primaries, you know, we put on the republican side, they may be able to change the perception. but right now this sarah palin bus tour and the fact that we are all talking about it, and not talking about what tim pawlenty had to say this weekend, not talking about what mitt romney had to say this weekend, i think it underscores in our mind that they are not as interesting copy as we say in the news business. they just don't have that kind of pull that magnetic pull that brings them to end and people want to hear what they have to say. they have to step up their game on that front. >> david gergen, live for us. still ahead here, another big shakeup in the president's national security team. does it mean a faster exit or stay the course in afghanistan? and next sarah palin says that she is certain that there will be in entries into the republican race. how does her pitch compare to other republican hopefuls out on the trail today. blah? 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