Palin closes out CPAC

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Of all the speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference this week nobody excited the crowd the way former Alaska governor Sarah Palin did. Of course nobody gave a speech filled with zippy one liners and guaranteed red meat applause lines like she did. Palin sounded more like a motivational speaker than somebody who, only a few months ago, was being bandied about as a serious presidential candidate.

“Well, Mr. President we don’t want an economy built to last, we want an economy built to grow and we certainly don’t want your economy to last, we want your administration to end,” she said bring the crowd to their feet, something she did frequently throughout the night.

Palin’s speech was heavy on attacks and loose on specifics unlike her comments from when she was on the ground in Iowa.

“We have a jobs plan it’s called the free market! It worked before this president and will work after this president,” she said, again, bringing the crowd to its feet.

Palin received more standing ovations during her speech than the actual three presidential contenders that appeared here, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich, did combined.

It was only later in her speech that Palin addressed the current presidential race where she spoke in vague terms about “our nominee” and how he will be a conservative.

“We don’t know who our nominee will be to come up against Barack Obama and his failed policies but we do know that this election will be hard fought. Our nominee must be ready, strong, fortified, passionate, a fighter for American ideals,” Palin said.

Her most successful line of the night was when she indirectly knocked Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention speech.

“We are not red Americans. We are not blue Americans. We are red white and blue, and President Obama, we are through with you,” she said.