Sarah Palin says Mitt Romney should play it safe with his VP pick. |AP Photos Palin: Mitt needs to set 'hair on fire'

Sarah Palin warned Tuesday that Mitt Romney must do more to energize conservatives before Election Day, saying the Republican presidential candidate should light the base’s “hair on fire.”

“Romney, he has said before that he doesn’t want to have to light his hair on fire. Well, there are a lot of his base supporters, independents who are saying, ‘Well, light our hair on fire, then! Remind us how important it is that we get engaged in this presidential election because it is the election of our lifetime,’” Palin told Sean Hannity of Fox News.


She was referring to Romney’s remarks in February that he’s not interested in saying “outrageous” and “accusatory” statements just for the sake of shoring up support. “You know I’m not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support,” he had said.

But Palin insisted Tuesday that an electrified base would be key to a Romney victory in the fall.

“We saw in the 2010 electoral victory and we saw in the Wisconsin recall victory … that the base, the independents, the tea party patriots, need to be energized and get out to vote,” the former Alaska governor said. “Otherwise, the right is not going to be able to get in there, into the White House and reverse the course that Barack Obama has put us on, towards bankruptcy and insolvency.”

Known to accuse journalists of having a liberal slant, Palin also said media “manipulation” would continue to pose as an uphill battle for Romney.

“Four years ago, Sean, they chose their one and they did all that they could to usher him into the White House. We are going to see the same tactic this is go around,” she said. “The filter that the media has is something that a politician, a candidate, has to be extremely astute in — kind of decimating that filter and getting through it so that the public has the correct information.”

The ex-vice presidential candidate also weighed in on the GOP nominee’s options for a running mate, referring to Sens. Rob Portman and Marco Rubio and Rep. Paul Ryan as “all good choices.”

She suggested that Romney will want to play it safe by picking someone who is more of a “known commodity” than she was in 2008, “so that the media doesn’t do what the media did to me — making things up and kind of thrashing somebody’s reputation and record in order to distract from what the election really was supposed to be about.”

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Sarah Palin