Palin is 'hanging out on cable TV, almost a parody of herself,' Trumka will say. | AP Photos Trumka: 'Palinism' an 'ugly word'

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will tell Alaskans on Thursday that there’s something “just not right” with their former governor, Sarah Palin, who he says is “getting close to calling for violence” in her rhetoric.

He’ll also predict that Palin will “go down in history like McCarthy,” referring to Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose unsubstantiated labeling of Americans as communists and communist sympathizers during the 1950s gave the world the word “McCarthyism.”


“Palinism will become an ugly word,” Trumka will say at a convention in Anchorage, according to prepared remarks. “Who is this woman, anyway? What happened to her?”

“She used to have a job, your governor,” he will say. “You knew her. ... Or thought you did. ... I know I thought I did. She seemed like a decent person, an outdoorswoman. Her husband’s a steelworker. She seemed to take some OK stands for working families.

“And then things got weird,” he added. “After she tied herself to John McCain and they lost, she blew off Alaska. I guess she figured she’d trade up … shoot for a national stage. Alaska was too far from the Fox TV spotlight."

“Instead, she’s hanging out on cable TV, almost a parody of herself, coming out with conspiracy theories about Obama and his ‘death panels.’ ... Talking about ‘the real America.’ Talking about building schools in ‘our neighboring country of Afghanistan.’ Writing speech notes to herself on her hands."

“Sometimes — about Sarah Palin — you just have to laugh. ... But it’s not really funny,” Trumka’s remarks say.

“In this charged political environment, her kind of talk gets dangerous. ‘Don’t retreat … reload’ may seem clever, the kind of bull you hear all the time, but put it in context. She’s using crosshairs to illustrate targeted legislators. She’s on the wrong side of the line there. She’s getting close to calling for violence. And some of her fans take that stuff seriously. We’ve got legislators in America who have been living with death threats since the health care votes,” he will say.

After the health care bill passed Congress in March, Palin, who had embraced and spread the “death panel” claim about the legislation, called on her Twitter followers not to “retreat” and “instead — RELOAD!” On her Facebook page, she wrote, “We’re paying particular attention to those House members who voted in favor of Obamacare and represent districts that Sen. John McCain and I carried during the 2008 election.”

“To me, it just doesn’t seem OK to go where she’s going,” Trumka’s prepared remarks say. “It sits wrong with me. ... The ‘Mama Grizzlies,’ Sarah Palin says, just sense when something’s not right. Well ... I wonder if those ‘Mama Grizzlies’ can sense something’s just not right with her.”

Trumka blames “Palin’s crazy magnet” for drawing Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski to the right.