Apparently Sarah Palin is joining the supporters of Ron Paul, who will be holding a "Paul Festival," in establishing her own get-together for those who Mitt Romney and the RNC fails to excite.
For the establishment types, the GOP convention will be held at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, Aug. 27-30. Conventions bring tens of thousands of visitors to a city, and the 2012 RNC will flood Tampa’s streets, hotels, and restaurants with politicians, party officials, consultants, strategists, reporters, and elected Republican delegates. If you’re a Romney supporter or a David-Brooksian centrist, this is the place for you.
But if you’re a hard-charging social populist deflated by the coronation of a formerly pro-choice Massachusetts governor, don’t worry. While that’s going on, Sarah Palin is expected to have her own presence down the street, at the Channelside Bay Mall half a mile away. It’s unclear what, exactly, Palin is planning, but her political group, Sarah PAC, paid the mall a $4,500 “Deposit for Space” in March, according to the group’s latest Federal Election Commission disclosure, suggesting Palin will set up shop there during or before the convention.
As far as I'm aware, the Democratic party does not have a comparable problem with divided elements of the party holding simultaneous conventions of their own within the same city, because unlike the Republicans and Mitt Romney, an overwhelming majority of us approve of President Obama.