Sarah Palin is planning her first major foreign trip since leaving the governor’s mansion in Alaska, with stops in the United Kingdom and Israel at the top of her list, The Daily Beast reported Thursday.
The former governor’s schedule was said to be “still fluid,” and it was not immediately clear if the governments of either country would welcome the potential 2012 presidential candidate with any official events. The trip was reportedly being planned for some time in the new year.
In the UK, at least, Palin may already have some of the agenda planned out: She wrote on her Facebook account this summer that she was looking forward to meeting former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, a conservative icon.
“I have received an invitation for a visit to London, and part of that invitation included the offer of arranging a meeting between myself and one of my political heroines, the ‘Iron Lady,’ Margaret Thatcher,” Palin wrote back in June. “I would love to meet her and hope I’ll be able to arrange the trip in the future.”
Israel is another natural fit, as the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee frequently criticizes President Barack Obama for being insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state.
The trip could burnish Palin’s thin foreign policy record. She visited troops in Germany and Kuwait while she was governor of Alaska, and delivered a paid speech in Hong Kong last year.
One place she is not planning to visit immediately is Russia, subject of an infamous remark from the candidate during the 2008 campaign.
“They’re our next door neighbors,” she told ABC News. “You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
It later emerged she had never visited that part of Alaska, and she has since poked fun of the response in subsequent interviews and on her TLC reality show.
Palin leads a busy field of potential candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, according to a Nov. 30 survey from Public Policy Polling. She had the support of 21 percent of Republicans, compared to 19 percent for Newt Gingrich and 18 percent for Mitt Romney.