Amid Confusion, Palin Will Headline Dinner
Updated 5:50 p.m.
Officials at the House and Senate GOP campaign committees said Tuesday that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) is still scheduled to headline their annual joint fundraising dinner in June, following a report in her home state that the governor was not confirmed to speak at the event.
The National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced Monday that Palin would headline their joint fundraising dinner in June — her first major public event in Washington, D.C., since she campaigned as the Republican vice presidential nominee last fall. However, a story in the Anchorage Daily News on Monday evening reported that Palin had not confirmed her attendance at the dinner.
“I communicated with the governor directly, and she did not know anything about it,— Bill McAllister, Palin’s official spokesman, told the Anchorage Daily News.
But spokesmen for the NRSC and the NRCC said separately that to their knowledge, Palin is still scheduled to headline the event.
“The committees have confirmed this with the governor’s political staff at SarahPAC, not her official staff in Juneau, so it’s understandable why there may be a miscommunication here,— NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh said in a prepared statement.
Pam Pryor, the national spokeswoman for SarahPAC, declined to comment on whether Palin would headline the dinner, saying the governor’s scheduled will be finalized by the end of April.
“From the political office of SarahPAC, we are fielding many many requests for Governor Palin and are submitting those to her,— Pryor said in a statement. “Her schedule will be finalized after the conclusion of the Alaska session.—
This is not the first time there has been confusion over a Palin address in Washington, D.C. Palin was announced as a speaker for the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual conference in February but pulled out of the event a couple weeks before, citing official duties.