You have confused Halloween with April Fools Day.
The TP wants less gov't, less taxes, the ability to do more with less restrictions and a few are outright anarchists. Aside from social issues, the TP is a poster child of liberalism. As for Palin, her record as well as here pre-VP run statements are pro-union, pro-labor, anti-corporation and she demanded that the oil companies pay a large share of their profits to the Alaskan people whom she believed to be the rightful owners of the oil. The leader of the DSA described her as the only socialist on the presidential ticket in 2008.

And the Dems, pro-environmental conservation, pro-business conservation, unabashed American Exceptionalists, extremely militant and historically theocratic, pro-slavery, anti-integration and anti-CRA.
I blame Fox (part of a large conservative Muslim media empire...) for the confusion as it was around the time they went on air that things started getting mixed up.