POINT CLEAR, Ala.—"You’re a godsend for special needs parents in Baldwin County. You’re here for the right reasons — not allowing America to descend to mediocrity.”

So said Sarah Palin, the Exceptional Foundation of Baldwin County’s featured speaker at its first major fundraiser Tuesday evening at the Grand Hotel Marriott. The foundation’s goal is to provide daily programs for special needs participants — children 5 years of age through adulthood — that include arts and crafts activities, team sports, exercise classes, social events and music.

Craig Dahle, an event organizer, said the local Exceptional Foundation modeled its program off one in Birmingham that has 300 participants. The Baldwin County program’s sessions — to be held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Daphne beginning in the fall — help enrich special needs residents who can’t depend on public school after a certain age. “Once kids turn 22 — buh-bye,” Dahle said, referring to special needs’ students’ right to receive publicly funded education until they reach age 22.

However, the keynote speaker’s remarks indicated that special needs advocacy, particularly to those in attendance, begins long before adulthood — namely in the womb. Palin knew the struggle well because her youngest son, Trig, was diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero and she has since spoken in favor of special needs children’s rights.

During her speech, the Wasilla, Alaska resident said she initially feared the “challenge” of having a child with Down syndrome. Being 43 years old — “no spring chicken” — when informed she was pregnant, several factors exacerbated the situation. She was Alaska’s governor; her husband was a commercial angler; their eldest son, Track, had enlisted in the U.S. Army’s infantry brigade; and she was already mother to three other children, Bristol, Willow and Piper.

Ultimately, the Pentecostal Christian’s anti-abortion beliefs helped her put things in perspective.

“Being pro-life, I always just thought there was this whisper in my ear: ‘Are you gonna just talk the talk or are you gonna walk the walk?” she said, explaining why she carried the pregnancy to term.

Trig arrived in seven and a half months, and the extra care he needed crystallized the Palin family’s understanding of their purpose.

“It was as if God gave us eyes to see Trig’s perfection. He allowed for us to understand what really matters in this world,” the 47-year-old said. One such lesson he taught them was to start the day with a little joy; the mother of five said she’s inspired by her son’s morning ritual of rolling out of bed, clearing his eyes and clapping. 

It’s a scene that most women with similar pregnancies will never see. About 90 percent of women who receive positive prenatal test results for Down syndrome abort their pregnancies, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health.

It’s a worrisome trend, Palin said.

“I believe exceptional people are not happenstance. Their differences are part of their unique destiny — and they do have a destiny,” she said.

Palin said she hopes her speeches on the issue will help pregnant women ignore outside pressure and ultimately make the choice she did.

“There’s society’s measurement of perfection and then there’s God’s measurement of perfection — and at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters,” she said of the latter, receiving the audience’s applause.

The former politician — who left her seat as Alaska governor in 2009 to begin a speaking career and support Tea Party candidates — said that despite hers and John McCain’s loss of the 2008 presidential and vice presidential election, she would still deliver on a campaign promise: that families and friends of special needs residents would have a friend and advocate. Though the setting for that advocacy obviously has changed, the intent remains, she said.

As for that familiar subject — whether she will run for president in 2012 — the Republican said, “You don’t have to have your name on a ballot to fight for things like (special needs causes). “We don’t need an office; we don’t need a title to do that.”

Palin on politics

Much of Palin’s remarks veered into politics, particularly during a question-and-answer session following her keynote address. She responded to the foundation’s prepared questions on various issues, most of which dealt with her views on federal government and current affairs. No media outlets were allowed to speak to Palin, and these were the only questions anyone could ask her.

Some of her comments are as follows.

• She commended President Barack Obama’s order and the Navy Seals’ actions for bringing Osama bin Laden to justice, and credited “the groundwork laid by (former President George W.) Bush.” However, she supported the idea of proving the al-Qaida founder and 9/11 mastermind is truly dead, if only to quell the naysayers, “conspiracy theorists — especially Arab nations — who don’t believe that we won,” she said. “Showing the photos, to me, allows us to say, ‘You mess with the United States military — we gotcha.” 
• On foreign relations when it comes to terrorism, Palin said, “We win; you lose, in the words of Ronald Reagan all those years ago.” 
• In fact, one of the threads throughout Tuesday’s dinner were quotations from the 40th U.S. president, namely several references to his “Shining City on a Hill” speech that stressed American exceptionalism. 
• The Tea Party movement — which she described as “not obsessively partisan; full of common sense” — inspires her, as does Abraham Lincoln.
• She picks her battles when the media attack her. Though erroneous media reports irk her and require her rebuttal, tabloid “potshots” — such as rumors of infidelity in her marriage — don’t faze her. Tending to Trig’s needs “taught us that that nonsense … may seem important to other people but at the end of the day, none of that stuff amounts to a hill of beans in our world,” she said.

Palin also echoed recurring themes in her other public appearances across the country including: 

• The negative effect she believes the federal government’s “uncontrollable” $14 trillion debt will have on future generations.
• That she believes the U.S. needs to “drill baby, drill” domestically for oil production.
• That she still believes the Obama administration’s 2010 health-care reform — which she termed “Obamacare” — was “rammed down our throats” and will result in health rationing “death panels” — two words that drew heavy criticism when she mentioned them on her Facebook page in 2009.

Honorary member

Before Palin exited the stage and ballroom, artist Joseph F. Gravlee IV presented her with two original paintings: one of a tree, the other of a skyline.

Master of ceremonies Bob Callahan presented her with a plaque recognizing her as an honorary member of the foundation’s Baldwin County branch. It was at least the second time during this visit that a local resident gave the visitor a particularly symbolic greeting. (The first came earlier that day, when a man simply said, “Well, welcome redneck!” to the Alaskan.)

The support seemed mutual; Sarah and Todd Palin traveled to Birmingham later that night and on Wednesday toured the area with Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian evangelism organization that aids war, natural disaster and poverty survivors.

“Just amazing devastation, the power of Mother Nature that has been made manifest in your neighboring communities here in Alabama,” Palin said, referring to last week’s tornados that killed at least 131 people in the state, according to news reports.

The Exceptional Foundation of Baldwin County began selling tickets last month to its first major fundraiser. Tickets were available in the following categories: $15,000 or $10,000 for a sponsor’s table seating 10 people, or $600 for individual tickets with open seating of up to 12 people per table.

Palin received a warm reception from the estimated 200 guests who paid top dollar to attend the benefit dinner. (Anticipation of the high profile, if polarizing, speaker was evident; while attendees rose from their chairs to catch a glimpse of her, one man drew the crowd’s laughter when he shouted, “If everybody would sit down, I could see her!” Callahan’s introduction included a connection between the Fox News political pundit and Winston S. Churchill: both were “excoriated, maligned and vilified,” he said. Further, resting on a number of attendees’ tables were dog-eared copies of Palin’s books.)

Throughout the evening, however, various speakers ensured the occasion stayed on topic.

Chaplain Ron Pierce summed it up in his invocation, praying that guests had “not just come to hear a great lady, but to support a great cause.”