Sarah Palin: "I'd Vote For Newt"

Sarah Palin offered something that looked a whole lot like an endorsement on Tuesday, telling Fox News that if she could go to the polls this Saturday in South Carolina she'd cast her ballot for Newt Gingrich.

Still, the former Republican VP nominee stopped short of following her husband's lead and throwing her full support behind Gingrich, instead suggesting that what her party needs most right now is a drawn-out primary that leaves the best candidate standing to take on President Obama in the general election.

"If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I’d vote for Newt," Palin told Sean Hannity after explaining that she thought the former House speaker won the most recent GOP debate. "And I would want this to continue—more debates, more vetting of candidates, because we know the mistake made in our country four years ago was having a candidate that was not vetted to the degree that he should have been, so that we know who his associations and his pals represented and what went into his thinking."

As the Washington Post notes, the state-specific endorsement comes at a time when Palin is ramping up her public schedule. That means—and this should come as no surprise given her uncanny ability to draw out the decision-making process about her own potential presidential campaign—that we can probably expect a series of similar endorsements as the GOP primary continues.

Here's the video: