Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin gave a 40-minute speech to a crowd of about 2000, gathered in an outdoor field this afternoon near Indianola, Iowa.  She blasted the country’s “permanent political class” and “crony capitalism” and warned folks to question presidential candidates of her own political party.  But while Palin spent some time outlining her own economic plan — and the crowd chanted “Run, Sarah, Run” at one point during her address — Palin did not use the occasion to announce a 2012 candidacy of her own.

AUDIO: Sarah Palin’s speech 40 min

Eric Golub,  a political comedian from L.A., is on stage.  He did a riff about Obama.  Here’s one of his jokes:  “You would think with ears that size just once he would listen, but he doesn’t.”

The outdoor venue for today’s Tea Party of America rally is currently under a thunder cloud. Rain is pouring onto the field and onto the people who are sitting in lawn chairs or standing on the field. This pasture is used as a hot air balloon launching pad during annual Indianola’s balloon festival. Today would be a no-launch day were the festival still on.

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It’s difficult to talk with the folks who are in the crowd, as many are huddle under their umbrellas.  The program has begun, however, and the Pledge has been said and the National Anthem was just sung.

There is a press tent at the event, which I’m huddled under along with colleagues who are typing on their laptops.  I’ve taken a few pictures, and offered up a spare umbrella for sale (it’s in my car trunk), on Twitter.  According to the program schedule, the folks outside have another hour and a half to wait before Palin takes the stage.

As former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin walked in the front door of The Machine Shed restaurant in Urbandale, Iowa, this evening, a reporter asked Palin what she thought about the current field of GOP presidential candidates.

“Happy with the field of candidates. I always think that there’s room for more, though, because spirited debate and more competition will allow an even better discourse and a more rigorous discourse that the public deserves,” Palin said.

AUDIO: Palin’s answer

Palin was greeted by a chant of “run, Sarah, run” by folks who were crowded in the gift shop area that is the entry for the restaurant.  Palin was surrounded by a clutch of media and she made her way into a room where the “Conservatives4Palin” and “Organize4Palin” folks had gathered.  Read the Radio Iowa account of the event, with comments from people in the  restaurant.

I had a conversation this afternoon with Stephen Bannon, the writer and director of “The Undefeated” — a documentary about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  The film will premiere this coming Tuesday, June 28 at the Pella Opera House.

“I had a concept about how to tell her story,” Bannon said. “It’s an amazing story of, really, modern America and the kind of difficulty of the middle class and the working class to make an impact on the world. And that story was hiding in plain sight and the mainstream media and even most of the conservative media had not picked up on the story. They really picked up on Governor Palin when she came to the Republican convention and hadn’t really looked at the backstory.”

I followed up with this question: When you see filmgoers leaving the Pella Opera House, what are you hoping? That they’re inspired to vote for her? What’s the goal of the film?

“The goal is very simple,” Bannon said. “Number one is, you know, AMC Theaters which is the second-largest theater chain in the country and Cinedigm which is the largest digital distribution company in the country, and ARC Entertainment — those are Hollywood capitalists. I mean, they’re not conservative companies by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the executives there watch more MSNBC than they do the conservative channels.  They see it as a story that transcends politics.  I mean, it’s really a story about people that are out there — when this story starts off, Sarah Palin is working on a little commercial fishing boat she co-owns with her husband who’s a blue collar foreman up on the North Slope.  Her dad’s a school teacher. He doesn’t make a lot of money. The family’s never made a lot of money. She’s married to a blue collar guy. She’s not part of any social or cultural or political elite.  Even in the frontier like Alaska, we lay out Alaska for the frontier it is, she’s not part of that elite. In fact, she’s as out of the loop as anybody in modern America and it shows you over 20 years really beginning at a town council level what one has to do to take on the vested interests.”