When John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, it suddenly made the Republican National Coalition for Life's reception at the convention one of the hottest tickets in town:
Hosted by Phyllis Schlafly, the event was designed to honor Palin as "a devoted wife and mother who puts life first ... who not only talks-the-talk, but walks-the-walk." Needless to say, the hosts were thrilled to have the new VP nominee as their featured guest and, given that the Right has finally started embracing McCain's campaign, it probably wasn't a good first move for them to cancel Palin's appearance at the last minute:
ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly is taking the McCain campaign to task for notifying her at the last-minute that Sarah Palin will be a no-show on Tuesday when the Republican National Coalition for Life holds an event honoring the Alaska governor.
"I think this is clearly somebody in the McCain campaign who doesn't understand where the votes are coming from," Schlafly told ABC News. "They only told me this at 10 o'clock last night and it was a call from somebody down-the-line in the McCain campaign."
"The pro-lifers who paid $95 to come to this event because of Sarah Palin are going to be very unhappy," she added.
Schlafly is expecting 800 people, most of whom are delegates to the Republican National Convention, to attend Tuesday's reception at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in St. Paul, Minn. The event runs from 4:00 - 6:00 pm CT.
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Nevertheless, the McCain campaign did not notify Schlafly of the plan to back out of the event until Monday night and Schlafly claims that the Secret Service scoped out the event site earlier in the day on Monday.
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Asked what she plans to say about the cancellation at the event, Schlafly said, "I am certainly going to say that it was McCain that canceled."
