The Brody File has learned that the offer of a short video from vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin to folks at this weekend’s Value Voters Summit has been turned down by its president, Tony Perkins.
A source inside John McCain’s campaign tells me that Palin was set to record the video Wednesday in Virginia before she left for Alaska. But when the McCain campaign approached Perkins about offering the video rather than a personal appearance Perkins said, according to numerous witnesses, “That’s not enough.”
The Brody File contacted Tony Perkins and he told us:
“Values voters have been excited by the pro-family and pro-life content of the 2008 GOP platform. It is a model we want to see all parties embrace. The excitement over Gov. Sarah Palin has spread across the country and is undiminished. As this hectic campaign got underway, we renewed our invitations to the major party tickets to address our Summit for 20 minutes each. That standard format was done to ensure fairness and to spare us another round of intrusive IRS inquiries regarding favoritism toward any candidate or party. Though we prevailed against an unwarranted complaint last year, winning an all-clear from the IRS cost us thousands in legal fees and staff time. Accepting any video from one campaign would have violated a proven format and exposed us to a complaint that all the candidates did not receive this option. We expect to have a tremendous event the next two days.”
The Brody File can report that in keeping with the Summit’s no videotape tradition, The White House offered to send a videotape address from President Bush last year but that was also rejected.
According to multiple sources, Palin was set to appear in person at the Summit which is billed as the largest gathering of value voters in the country. But a McCain source says plans changed when they were alerted that she needed to go to Alaska Thursday to be with her son as he deployed to Iraq.
The conservative conference is Friday and concludes Sunday morning. Palin is set to make a campaign stop in Nevada on Saturday. John McCain is in the Washington D.C. area that weekend with no scheduled public events but a source tells me he has a full day of campaign business to attend to.
What say you? Should McCain and/or Palin have made the effort to be there or should Tony Perkins at The Family Research Council have just accepted the videotape and offered the option to the other major party ticket?