(This is my first day of several on the road traveling. I have Sarah Palin’s irreplaceable

 book, AMERICA BY HEART: Reflections on Family Faith and Flag along. The tag on the dust cover front flap is, “This is my America from my heart and by my heart. I give it now to my children and my grandchildren, and to yours, so they will always know what it was like in America when people were free.” With respect to Governor Palin, in these reports we’ll call her Sarah)

Day 1 an American Awakening

We refer to this present Great Awakening here. We believe this blog is part of it. Perhaps we have never really defined it. Let’s get at it. What is an American Awakening?

My family and I have spent a lot of the past year traveling the country. I’ve visited dozens of cities in more than half of the fifty states on a tour for my first book, Going Rogue,helping out candidates running for office, and promoting pro-American causes. My visit to Boston was the next-to-last stop of the Tea Party Express in a forty-four-city, three-week tour. I was there when the tour began, in the desert sands of Searchlight, Nevada, when more than ten thousand citizens turned out to take back their government. And I was there in Boston for one last rally before the tour ended on Tax Day in (where else, when the issue is “taking back our government”?) Washington, D.C.

Along the way, I’ve talked to literally thousands of Americans from all across the country. I’ve met with folks in their living rooms, at their businesses, and at boisterous, country- music-jammin’ rallies. What’s more, hundreds of people have sent me books, magazine articles, snippets of speeches, and their own comments with different takes on America.

What I’ve learned from all this traveling and meeting and talking and reading is this: the spark of patriotic indignation that inspired the Americans who fought for our freedom and independence has been ignited once again! Americans are reawakening to the ideas, the principles, the habits of the heart, and disciplines of the mind that made America great. This isn’t a political awakening. It’s an American awakening.

Sarah called the source of this awakening a spark. A spark from where? From God of course. Expect this book to be about “Habits of the Heart” and “Disciplines of the mind.” Here is a sample of what Sarah found about Americans:

• Americans still “cling” to our founding values.
• We don’t want a “fundamental transformation.”
• “We are worried about our families and whether as a country we [still honor] the role and responsibility of mothers.”
• We are concerned that “[W]e are not protecting the innocence and safety of our children.”
• We are concerned that “[W]e are becoming of freedom from religion.”
• “The thing [in her speeches] that gets the most enthusiastic response is when I talk about America’s founding ideas and documents.”   

This is going to be a great trip!