Palin's tour of NYC continues

Sarah Palin's secretive tour of the East Coast continued as she spent a second day in New York Wednesday and visited the Statue of Liberty, where she drew shrieks and applause from tourists but said nothing about whether she'll run for president.

The unusual bus tour of historic monuments -- she started in Washington, D.C., on Sunday and hit Philadelphia on Tuesday -- has had the made-for-TV moments of a political campaign. But Palin has kept her schedule secret, forcing reporters to guess her next stop as if on a scavenger hunt. She said Wednesday that after New York, she will begin traveling west and "see as much as I can of the country."

Palin made no substantive policy comments at Liberty Island Wednesday morning. Statue of Liberty spokeswoman Jane Ahern said Palin, her parents and her daughter Piper drove to Ellis Island from Liberty State Park in New Jersey. They then took a regularly scheduled National Park Service boat that ferries workers to Liberty Island. Ahern said there was no additional public cost.

Palin did not stop to talk to reporters. But responding to questions shouted at her as she walked to the monument, Palin called the Statue of Liberty a "symbol of what we can do well in the name of freedom."

Palin said she and Donald Trump had talked some over dinner Tuesday night about her own possible run and about other potential candidates. Asked if any candidates stood out in their estimation, she replied, "They're all so deserving."

She said Wednesday that she hadn't decided whether to enter the presidential race. Palin didn't answer when asked if she'd characterize her trip as a campaign tour, and disappeared into the statue entrance.

Palin's visit drew different reactions from New York political observers.

Jay Jacobs, state and Nassau Democratic Committee chairman, said the tour was "only about publicity. . . . It's wonderful to be a potential candidate, but it's something else to be an actual candidate and it's something altogether different to actually be in office."

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), who himself has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, said he thinks Pailin is using the tour to gauge her chances. King said that, with high negatives in the polls, Palin will have a hard time winning either the Republican presidential primary or the general election. However, "she'd bring a vibrancy" to the race, said King.

At Liberty Island Wednesday, Palin surprised visiting tourists.

"She's so beautiful," said Rachelle Rexroat, 16, a student at Teutopolis (Ill.) High School. But as Palin headed back to the boat after about an hour on the island, Hugh Corbet Crick, 58, a tour guide from Manhattan, and Doug Hart, 41, a middle school history teacher from Fredericksburg, Md., who was on Crick's tour, yelled, "Go back to Alaska."