Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who ran with Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) in 2008, said Sunday she would fun for office “again in a heartbeat.”
Palin was asked about her 2008 bid by Fox News host Mark Levin during his show “Life, Liberty and Levin” Sunday and whether she was “glad” she ran for vice president.
“Oh yes, I would do it again in a heartbeat,” she told Levin. “I woulda pushed back harder on some of those who were trying to mold me into something that I was not during the campaign. I would’ve pushed back and gotten more truth out there, but heck yeah.”
Palin told Levin she was “surprised” by some of the negative press she got while running with McCain given her “very high” ratings in her home state of Alaska where she was serving as governor. She said she was “mostly shocked” by how little the McCain-Palin campaign did to defend her.
“I was surprised because in Alaska, as I mentioned, my ratings were very high, things were going well in the court of public opinion so I was mostly shocked, Mark, that the campaign itself didn’t defend against a lot of the lies that were being spewed during the campaign, and then when that narrative was created, they created a caricature of Sarah Palin and the Palin family, once that bell is wrung, it’s hard to unring,” she said.
“That aspect was perplexing and frustrating,” she continued. “But I have learned a lot in these 10 years and I don’t put up with as much as I had back then and I don’t let things bother me. I obviously didn’t let a lot of things bother me then either otherwise I’d be crawled up in a fetal position under that table and just want to go away.”
During the 2008 campaign Palin was criticized in the media — and mocked on late night — for a plethora of shortcomings, including a lack of foreign policy knowledge, outrageous wardrobe spending and a penchant for lashing out during impromptu press appearances.
