McCain's veep choice Sarah Palin sailed into a holy gale
Published Sunday, November 2, 2008
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Sarah Palin
Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., announced that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was his choice as vice presidential running mate on Friday, Aug. 29, 2008.
WASHINGTON -- The lower 48 haven't seen the last of Sarah Palin, win or lose.
The presidential campaign has had an odd effect on Palin's unsettled place in political life. It punctured down-home myths about the Alaska governor and trimmed her down to size. Yet it may have helped her to be taken more seriously as a candidate in her own right, in a future election.
Palin came to the country's attention as a woman in the mold of the man at the top of the Republican ticket. Reformer, independent operator, foe of the status quo. You know, maverick.
What's the difference between pit bulls John McCain and Sarah Palin?
Lipstick.
So it seemed.
Scrutiny dulled the shine on McCain's nugget from the north. The crusader against the "bridge to nowhere" actually supported it. The clean-hands governor ended up the subject of legislative inquiry that found she abused power as governor. The woman who "took on" the oil companies also cries "drill, baby, drill."
She was Katy Couricked, Tina Feyed, dressed to the nines, wrapped in a kind of campaign bubble-pack lest she break, finally to break loose — or looser — from the McCain campaign's control. At which point frustrations by Palin allies over her rocky introduction to the public and by McCain backers over the Alaska governor's unscripted moments spilled out through anonymous quotes in news stories.
It's all a long way from Wasilla, Alaska.
"Holy cow," said Chuck Heath, her dad, when he got word McCain had chosen his daughter as vice presidential candidate. That pretty much summed up the reaction of the country.
McCain's bold stroke brought the first woman ever to the Republican ticket, a strongly anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage candidate who was one of the nation's most popular governors. But she was new to foreign affairs and the full sweep of national issues. She knew more about catching fish, which she once did for a part-time living, than about most of the policies in play.
But she was not a complete surprise to the political class. Democratic operatives had her on their radar screen for several months. She made them a bit nervous.
"She's exactly who I need," McCain said in introducing her. "She stands up for what's right, and she doesn't let anyone tell her to sit down."
Said Palin: "I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built."
Out she sailed into the gale.
Palin has done the star turn at Republican rallies since her auspicious speaking debut at the Minnesota convention. On the stump, she's been the most biting critic of Democrat Barack Obama, a man she claimed — without factual basis — was "palling around with terrorists."
Social conservatives, lukewarm about McCain, came on side with her selection and finally showed enthusiasm for the fray. This, as Palin's popularity fell among Americans at large. After her fumbling interview with Katie Couric, the rap against her hardened that she was unqualified to step in to the presidency if needed.
Alaska's first female governor arrived at the state Capitol in 2006 on an ethics reform platform after defeating two former governors in the primary and general elections. Her prior political experience consisted of terms as Wasilla's mayor and councilwoman and a stint as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
In the primary, Palin defeated incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski, who also had 22 years of experience in the U.S. Senate.
Her task didn't seem any easier in the general election, but she handily beat Tony Knowles, a popular Democrat who had served two earlier terms as governor.
During her first year in office, Palin moved away from the powerful old guard of the state Republican Party and presided over a tax increase on oil company profits that now has the state's treasury swelling.
But she is a bullish proponent of petroleum development, in tune with McCain, although the two disagree on drilling in Alaska's protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She favors drilling there; he opposes it.
The governor also opposed designating polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, fearing that step would threaten offshore drilling.
She came into office preaching reform at a time when a federal corruption investigation dogged a number of Alaska's Republican elected officials. One such powerhouse, Sen. Ted Stevens, was convicted in the week before the presidential election on seven counts of trying to hide more than $250,000 in free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor.
To rid the Capitol of the appearance of undue influence, she kept lobbyists out of her office. And after two years as governor, her popularity reached 80 percent in approval ratings.
Still, she was shadowed through the presidential campaign by an inquiry that found she violated state ethics laws by letting a family dispute influence her decision-making as governor. Specifically, she had fired Alaska's public safety commissioner after she and her husband Todd had pressed him to dismiss her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.
Palin still makes her home in Wasilla, a town of 6,500 about 30 miles north of Anchorage, with her husband, a blue-collar North Slope oil worker who four times has won the Iron Dog, a 1,900-mile snow machine race. He is part Yup'ik Eskimo. The two used to spend summers fishing commercially for salmon, an enterprise that once left her with broken fingers.
The two met at a high school basketball game and they eloped in 1988, six years after graduation, to avoid the cost of a wedding.
"We had a bad fishing year that year, so we didn't have any money," Todd Palin told The Associated Press last year. "So we decided to spend 35 bucks and go down to the courthouse." They have five children.
Even before McCain picked Palin, people outside Alaska were beginning to notice the young governor with the bright smile — runner-up in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest — whose good looks spawned a bumper sticker that read: "Coldest State. Hottest Governor." In December, she posed for the fashion magazine Vogue but says she declined to don runway attire.
"At first they had me in a bunch of furs," she said of the photo shoot. "Yeah, I have furs on my wall, but I don't wear furs. I had to show them my bunny boots and my North Face clothing."
She did the photo shoot while just a few months pregnant, which the public did not know.
What she knew and others didn't at the time was that her son, Trig, would be born with Down syndrome. There was never a doubt that she and Todd would have the child, she told the AP earlier this year.
"We've both been very vocal about being pro life," Palin said. "We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential."
Trig Paxson Van Palin (in homage to the rock band Van Halen) was born in April. With Trig in tow, Palin returned to work a few days later, for a meeting of her energy team. Trig and siblings were by the Palins' side or in their arms at the convention and many campaign events since.
Along the way, she proved a more divisive figure than McCain might have hoped — turning off many moderate independents and apparently failing to draw those who supported Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, the other woman of history in Campaign '08, in the primaries.
But she developed a following among social conservatives — as McCain needed. And as she will, too, if she hears the call to run, baby, run, another time.
Community Discussion
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"She's exactly who I need," McCain said in introducing her. "She stands up for what's right, and she doesn't let anyone tell her to sit down."
McCain, Fire Cox! Go McCain / Palin, God Bless America!
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politi...
Barack Hussein Obama, Part of Wall Street Gang?
http://www.rense.com/general27/stt.htm
Republicans blocked much of the Democrats' agenda the past two years -- on matters from expanding health care to withdrawing troops from Iraq -- with filibusters.
McCain has been in the Senate since 1987 and did 4 years in the House......in all that time his MAVERICK BS has not done a bit of good for the WORKING MAN<><><> so musher must be a non worker or as we call it..."ONE OF THEM"
Sarah should be put up for sainthood. No other has accomplished as much...HOGWASH. She has climbed over the backs of so many people and not even looked back. It's her way or the highway, right or wrong. The prank call is just another example of her lack of knowledge when opening her mouth. I'm embarrassed for her..she can't see it and doesn't even try to change.
What a terribly written article! It looks like AP could use a new copy editor. It's a bunch of convoluted words and phrases that end up making no point at all, other than repeating a bunch of stuff that's been written about ad nauseam. Letters to the Editor would have been better use of this wasted space.
Looks like AP is up front of this parade, holding the US flag. God Bless America!
"It's a bunch of convoluted words and phrases that end up making no point at all, other than repeating a bunch of stuff that's been written about ad nauseam"
Yeah doris, kind of like a blizzard of words. Remind you of anyone?
It looks like poor Sarah walked into the barn to remove the manure, but she ended up running out of there all covered in horse poop.
...I suspect she made the mistake of hiring some expensive shyster eastcoast lawyers to help advise her on what to do with the manure.
Wanna see something funny?..
Send a lawyer to go get a gallon of milk from a cow..
well, at least it's funny until the lawyer sets fire to the barn to cover up the FACT he's a useless fraudulent snake-oil phony word-weaseling thieving grifter.
Thankfully the internet has made big progress to keeping the citizens informed...
here's an interesting blog from a guy in Baltimore who is looking at Alaska from the other end of the hydrocarbon-hustle&hype----
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_f...
I don't even recognize AKIP as the same wise insightful small group of wisemen that it was 40years ago. Alaskans should go invade Texas and take over Galveston then rename the place and call it "Fairbanks".
..after all, Houston/Wasilla is populated mostly by cheechakos, and Prudhoe is named after an old stone castle in England.
Alaska's capitol should be moved back to Fairbanks.
jroosterDUD, I just had to call you on your sarcastic comment in another of today's newsminer articles, "African dance workshop gets Fairbanksans moving."
Go to that article and read my comment on what you had to say. Go ahead, I dare you. Just another of my 2 cents to add to your treasure. Now we're up to 6 cents, DUD. You're getting rich!
And since when did redneck conservatives such as yourself get in the habit of ending messages with "Peace Out?" If I didn't know how far to the right you really are, ending messages that way might make people think that you're just the opposite - some kind of commie, long haired librul hippie.
DUD, you are a study in contrasts.
Was this article worth the space? What was the point? Clearly, the continuing investigation on Palin has been left out; until after the election. What a joke!
Impeach Palin.
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Distan Thunder the only thing I see funny is a news paper that only prints negative date for one side and then a couple of want to be's that jump on the wagon with the NM, like I said the othe day and I repeat Go Sara but more important Go John
Palin is bound for indictment...once all the details of her gas pipeline deal and the benefit to her friends comes to court ... she will be legally slandered and we will see her exactly for what she is
a female Frank Murkowski, Ted Stevens, and Don Young.
I agree with Musher!
Go PALIN!
she's tough! I support our own :)
Much of her troubles have been generated by Sarah Palin herself. Her responses to interview questions and her ethics trouble in Troopergate are essentially self inflicted.
Are you McCain/Palin people totally nuts??? We have had republicans in power for the last 8 years and look at this country - we are fighting 2 wars, our economy has fallen apart, most of the world hates us, a large number of Bush's closest advisors are now in prison or soon will be, there has been lie after lie from the republicans, Bush and Cheney are forced into hiding out so they won't be associated with McCain, the polls show there will be record numbers of republicans who will vote for Obama/Biden this election. Can you guys not face reality????????
Let me add - Palin has done more damage to McCain's campaign than anything other than McCain voting for Bush failed policies 92% of the time.
Hi folks,
Go hadrian38. You got it right. Palin's approval rating has gotten worse. She is an empty shirt; not a fertile thought. Unemployment, taxes, and fair trade are foreign to her.
Good bye Sarah!!! Build another ferry to no where.
Have a great day
Good Morning,
Although I do not completely agree with some of the methedology [O]ur Governor has displayed in dealing with certain issues,...
I do know this,...
If one takes the time to research the aplicable Alaska Statutes, and absorb what is contained therein,...
One must come to the conclusion that,so far as can be found and acertained from these laws, Governor Palin [M]ay perhpas have bumped into the outskits of thier boundries, but has [N]ot crossed over them, read and absorb, cross reference, and the consider and ponder the question were her actions justified?
[NOTE]: (It is in the publics best interest that Alaska devoid itself of blights in it's Public Saftey Division,in doing so, Sarah acted in the best interest of Alaska's citezenry thereby boosting confidence in Public Saftey, and although perhaps not the way I might have confronted this "TROOPERGATE" issue, her actions were justifiable.)
Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act:
http://touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/STAT...
AS 11.81.320. Justification: Necessity:
http://www.touchngo.com/lglcntr/akstats/...
hadrian38:
Are you familiar with the term Policy Lag, or inside lag?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_lag
Study these or dig evan deeper for yourself, and then think about the Clinton years and their policies.....(we are living threw them presently, thier deregulation in certain areas of economic foundation has brought us all to the point of virtual ecomonic ruin).
Our current President George W. Bush has enacted many policies yet to be realized,
Do you want Senator Obama to take credit for the policy lags that will occure in the next eight years?
this Makes it a whole new ball game for You, now dosen't it?
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