Palin: Bus tour 'not about me'

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said Monday that her nationwide bus tour is not designed to drum up support for a possible presidential campaign or boost her own television career. 

Palin also appeared to downplay the idea that her tour, which started Sunday at the Rolling Thunder rally in Washington, indicates she is closer to entering the GOP primary field.

"I know that many of the mainstream media are looking for kind of a conventional campaign-type tour. And I've said from the beginning this isn't a campaign tour, except to campaign on our Constitution," she told Fox News's Greta van Susteren during a one-on-one interview aboard her tour bus. "It's not about me. It's not a publicity-seeking tour; it's about highlighting the great things about America."

The tour set off a frenzy of media coverage and shook up the field. Following the news about Palin last week, other GOP contenders, such as Mitt Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), immediately made plans to deliver their announcements about the 2012 race. 

According to her website, Palin's "One Nation" tour has taken her to Washington (where she visited the National Archives), Mount Vernon (George Washington's Virginia estate), Fort McHenry in Baltimore and Gettysburg, Pa. (site of the Civil War's bloodiest battle). 

But Palin has looked to keep political observers and the media off balance about her intentions. She has refused to give the press advance notice of where she will be traveling and has largely avoided speaking to media members who did manage to locate her whereabouts.

One of her few interviews was with Fox News, where she is a paid contributor. Last week, Fox announced that it would not suspend Palin's contract, a sign that she has not given the network clues about whether she will run.

Palin, who has jousted with the "lamestream media," said that they will have to do "investigative work" to find out where she is going.

"They want kind of a conventional idea of 'We want a schedule, we want to follow you, we want you to bring us along with you.' I'm like a) I don't think I owe anything to the mainstream media," she said.

"I think that it would be a mistake to become some kind of conventional politician and doing things the way they have always been done with the media … telling them to come along and we'll orchestrate this, we'll script this and we'll basically write a story for you.

"No, I want them to have to do a little bit of work on a tour like this."

---