PALIN PULSE
Recent Additions: The world can vote …fivethirtyeight.com may be the best poll…your state’s electoral process … If a problem voting …
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If the world could vote: Now you don’t have to just wonder what would happen if the world could vote. You can actually do something about it. Check out iftheworldcouldvote.com and pass it on to your friends outside the United States so they can vote for the next President, too … This is an ingenious idea from some guys in Iceland. So far they’ve collected about half a million votes, and, yes, they’ve set up the system so that a voter can only vote once. As of this minute (Wed., Oct. 29, 8:41am) Obama has a hefty lead …
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There’s obviously a lot of different polling going on, but www.fivethirtyeight.com may be the best to follow. I first heard of fivethirtyeight.com (that’s the number of electoral votes there are in total) from my just-graduated-from-college kid. Having followed its numbers for awhile, I was interested to see this article, “The Spreadsheet Psychic,” in New York Magazine, which explained who’s behind fivethirtyeight, his impressive track record and how his numbers are weighted …
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If you’re wondering about the electoral process in your state, The League of Women Voters has put this site together — vote411.org. It will tell you what you need to know.
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If you encounter a problem at your polling place, there should be someone there to report it to. However, if there isn’t call 1-866-OUR-VOTE …
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Colin Powell endorses Obama on Meet the Press … In an interview with Tom Brokow today (Sunday, October 19), as reported on Yahoo and the AP:
“Retired General Colin L. Powell, one of the country’s most respected Republicans, stunned both parties on Sunday by strongly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and laying out a blistering, detailed critique of the modern GOP.
Powell said the election of Obama would “electrify the world.”
“I think he is a transformational figure,” Powell said. “He is a new generation coming … onto the world stage and on the American stage. And for that reason, I’ll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.”
Retired General Colin L. Powell, one of the country’s most respected Republicans, stunned both parties on Sunday by strongly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and laying out a blistering, detailed critique of the modern GOP.
Powell said the election of Obama would “electrify the world.”
“I think he is a transformational figure,” Powell said. “He is a new generation coming … onto the world stage and on the American stage. And for that reason, I’ll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.”
For an overseas perspective, here’s what the BBC reported about the interview online:
“I think he [Barack Obama] would be a transformational president,” Mr Powell told NBC’s Meet The Press.
An Obama victory would should “not just electrify our country, it would electrify the world”, he said.
Mr Obama was better suited to handle America’s economy, the former secretary of state said.
“In the case of Mr McCain… you got the sense that he didn’t have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had,” he argued.
Mr Powell was also “concerned” at the selection of Governor Sarah Palin” for running mate believing her not ready for the White House.
And President Bush’s first secretary of state criticised his own party for allowing the campaign to turn negative.
“I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the [Republican] Party say… such things as ‘Well, you know that Mr Obama is a Muslim’.
“Well the correct answer is, ‘He’s not a Muslim, he’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian’. But the really right answer is, “What if he is?’ Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is ‘No’, that’s not America.”
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Tina Fey is Sarah Palin on the opening segment and Sarah Palin moves to the rhythm of a second segment Sarah Palin rap on SNL …Â
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The Republicans try but the Supreme Court sides with the Democrats (finally) in Ohio according to The Wall Street Journal article: “Supreme Court is United in Siding with Ohio Election Official,” October 17:
First two paragraphs:
“WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court put up a united front in siding with Ohio Democrats on a voting case, in sharp contrast to its own history in the famous 2000 Bush v. Gore ruling and a partisan divide at the appeals court that ruled on the Ohio dispute.
Ohio Republicans want thousands of voter registrations to be verified before election day. Their suit said the Ohio secretary of state, a Democrat, failed to follow federal law for verifying voter names. The secretary not only rejected the allegation but also argued that federal law allows only the Justice Department — and not private litigants like political parties — to bring enforcement actions under the Help America Vote Act.
With the election 18 days away, the Supreme Court took less than 24 hours to find that the secretary probably was right about who is allowed to sue. With no time to conduct a full trial on the question, Ohio should not be forced to disrupt its voter rolls on the slim chance that the Republicans might ultimately prevail, the high court concluded.”
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We forget that our man’s-best-friends are victims of the Iraq war, too. That’s why SPCA International has teamed up with our soldiers in Iraq to get their companion animals and pets a home in the U.S. You can donate to Operation Baghdad Pups and brings these four-legged heros from a war zone to a real home where they can have the love and safety they deserve …
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The David Brooks column “Thinking About Obama,” October 16, The New York Times‘ doesn’t exactly endorse Obama, but does speak grandiloquent about him as Brooks talks about how Obama has shown the “same untroubled self-confidence day after day.” …
His first paragraph: We’ve been watching Barack Obama for two years now, and in all that time there hasn’t been a moment in which he has publicly lost his self-control. This has been a period of tumult, combat, exhaustion and crisis. And yet there hasn’t been a moment when he has displayed rage, resentment, fear, anxiety, bitterness, tears, ecstasy, self-pity or impulsiveness.”
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Has Obama “closed the sale? AWall Street Journal columnist doesn’t think so (that would be Karl Rove) …
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It’s 3 for 3 — First results in from a CNN/Opinion Research poll put the third and final Presidential Debate at 58% Obama to 31% MCain with favorable opinion ratings, clarity, likeability, and handling of the economy also going to Obama …
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A sentimental BREAK from this ELECTION:
If you remember Don McLean’s hit folk-rock song “American Pie,” then you’ll find yourself going down a long sentimental journey about “What did American Pie mean” if you click here (scroll down from the copy to get the video imagery/music) …
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An update on the Sarah Silverman video (yes, we debated including it here rather than insult anyone), but it’s getting so much publicity that who are we to argue … Here’s what CNN broadcast today (Tuesday, Oct. 14) about it the video and it’s impact: “Great Schlep pitches Obama to Florida Jews.”A few other related news stories and videos are embedded in this one …
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The New Yorker editors endorse Barack Obama in “The Choice,” October 13, 2008. They begin with:
“Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching-that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true?
After a discussion of the issues, the implications and the impact of each candidate’s stand, the editors end ‘The Choice’ by writing the following:
“We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama-a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America-would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe.That leader’s name is Barack Obama.
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Wow! Christopher Buckley, son of William F. and writer for the National Review, endorses Obama in “The Daily Beast“. He then resigns from the National Review as “readers were outraged” … Interesting and entertaining to read this The Daily Beast column — here’s his first paragraph … and the last couple:
“Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.
Or would they?” …
… But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.
Obama has in him-I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric-the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.
So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.
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If you want a “That One 08” t-shirt go to www.thatone08.com. No — we don’t make this stuff up.
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In North Carolina, Hugh McColl Jr.,the former Bank of America Chairman & CEO endorses Obama as reported in The Charlotte Observer.
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How Racism Works
What if John McCain were a Harvard grad and former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said ‘I do’ to?
What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?
What if Michelle Obama were a wife who not only became addicted to pain killers, but acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?What if Obama were a member of the Keating-5?
What if McCain were a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?
This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.
PS: What if Barack Obama had an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter….
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The Context of what Reagan said and Palin quoted in her closing remarks during the debate as reported in The New York Times, Paul Krugman column: “Raising the White Flag of Surrender — to Medicare, October 3, 2008.
“It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it to our children in
the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we’re going to
find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children about a time in America, back in the day, when
men and women were free.
When did he say this? It was on a recording he made for Operation Coffeecup – a campaign organized by the American Medical Association
to block the passage of Medicare. Doctors’ wives were supposed to organize coffee klatches for patients, where they would play the
Reagan recording, which declared that Medicare would lead us to totalitarianism.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.”
________________________________________________________________________
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/raising-the-white-flag-of-surrender-to-medicare/
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Here’s the Tina Fey/Palin/Biden Debate on SNL from Saturday, October 4th
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Sent to snoety by Karin Hibma Cronin:
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Polls agree. Biden clear winner over Palin in debate.
Poll results from CNN/Opinion Research Corp.:
- The winner: 51% say Biden
- Persona: 54% say Palin is more likable, while Biden was seen as “typical”
- Preparedness: 87% say Biden is qualified to be V.P, while 42% think Palin is
- Performance: 84% say Palin was better than expected, though 52% say Biden was better at expressing his views
Poll results from CBS News/Knowledge Networks:
- The winner: 46% of uncommitted voters say Biden (including a quarter of uncommitted Republicans)
- Persona: 55% say they liked Palin more after the debate, 53% liked Biden more
- Preparedness: 97% say Biden is prepared for the position, while 55% think Palin is
- Performance: 98% say Biden seems knowledgeable on important issues, while 66% say the same for Palin
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If you’re interested in the true facts, here’s a Washington Post debate Fact Checker link.
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Advertising Age reports on debate viewership:
The following is from Advertising Age, Mediaworks, The Rash Report, “Biden/Palin Debate Reaches 69.9 Million Viewers”, by John Rash, October 03, 2008
“MINNEAPOLIS (AdAge.com) — After all the speculation, America was very, very interested in last night’s vice presidential debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin. So interested that 69.9 million tuned in to watch …
That surpasses the 56.7 million people who tuned in to watch the 1984 debate between then VP George H.W. Bush and Geraldine Ferraro. And Biden/Palin beat the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, which drew an audience of 52.4 million last Friday night.
The final Nielsen ratings show that during the 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ET period the debate was scheduled, 47.8 million households were watching the 11 networks that carried the debate and that were monitored by Nielsen. The debate was carried by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telefutura, Telemundo, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News Network and BBC America. PBS, which also aired the debate, said it drew 3.5 million viewers …”
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Video of the Palin/Biden debate …
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According to The Washington Post yesterday just prior to the debate: Skepticism of Palin is growing.
“Six in 10 voters see her as lacking the experience to be an effective president, and a third are now less likely to vote for McCain because of her.”
“About half of all voters said they were uncomfortable with the idea of McCain taking office at age 72, and 85 percent of those voters said Palin does not have the requisite experience to be president.
The 60 percent who now see Palin as insufficiently experienced to step into the presidency is steeply higher than in a Post-ABC poll after her nomination early last month. Democrats and Republicans alike are now more apt to doubt her qualifications, but the biggest shift has come among independents.
In early September, independents offered a divided verdict on Palin’s experience; now they take the negative view by about 2 to 1.”
“More than two-thirds of voters in the Pew poll said they plan to watch the debate, far more than said they were going to turn on the vice presidential debate four years ago.”
“The share of independent women less apt to support McCain because of the Palin pick has more than doubled to 34 percent, while the percentage more inclined to support him is down eight points.”
“Overall, 51 percent of voters view Palin favorably; for Biden, that number is a bit higher at 57 percent.”
“White married women are particularly likely to see Palin as in touch, as three-quarters said she understands their concerns. At the same time, a majority of such women do not think Palin has enough experience to be a good president. (White married women support the GOP ticket by a 20-point margin.)
Palin runs far behind Biden on another important attribute: About three-quarters of those surveyed said he understands complex issues, compared with 46 percent who said so of her.
On the eve of the presidential election in 2000, 76 percent said Al Gore had a solid grasp of hard issues; 60 percent said so of George W. Bush”
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Here’s the Tina Fey/Palin/Katie Couric SNL interview from Saturday, September 27th. (It’s not yet on YouTube; this is at TheUndergroundCity.com. You’ll need to scroll down on their home page).
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Here’s CNN’s video transcript of the first Presidential Debate (McCain/Obama) held in Mississippi on Friday evening, September 26th.
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Here are clips from the actual CBS Palin/Katie Couric interview … and a story about “the McCain camp” now suggesting “postponing” the VP Debate (link to CNN story) The Vice Presidential debate is currently scheduled for Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.
Joe Biden speaks on Foreign Policy (here’s video) in Cincinnati, Ohio, Wednesday, Sept. 24 — a GREAT speech if you missed it …
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Palin’s pastor protects her from witchcraft. See this video …
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If you can: DONATE & ATTEND — NATIONAL WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP ISSUES CONFERENCE (Obama Campaign)
National Women’s Leadership Issues Conference
Women’s voices and votes are critical both in determining the outcome of the 2008 presidential election and shaping the future of our nation. Join Senator Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and dynamic women leaders from across the country for the National Women=E2s Leadership Issues Conference on the afternoon of Friday, October 10th to the evening of Saturday, October 11th at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers in downtown Chicago, IL.
This exciting two-day conference will present important policy and campaign strategy updates and provide tools for women to take back to the field and their communities for Election Day. Speakers such as Madeleine Albright and Bob Rubin among others will discuss the issues that will be most important in November including National Security & Foreign Policy, the Economy, Health Care, Energy & Climate Change, Reproductive Choice & Equal Pay.
Details for the conference are included below – make sure to sign up today at https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/OVFWLF
Dates & Times: Friday, October 10th (registration starts at 1:00 p.m., program begins at 3:30 p.m.); Saturday, October 11th (program will conclude by 6:00 p.m.)
Location: Sheraton Hotel & Towers, 301 East North Water Street, Chicago, IL
Contribution Levels: Tickets range from $1,000 – $28,500 (please note that $1,000 tickets will not be available after September 15th – general admission tickets increase to $2,500). Details on contribution levels can be found at registration site.
Registration: Please register for the conference by making a contribution online at https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/OVFWLF. The deadline for registration is September 30th.
Leadership Committee: Leadership Committee Members pledge to raise at least $25,000 for this event – please contact womensleadership@dnc.org if you are interested in serving on the host committee.
Hotel Reservations: To make a reservation at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers, please call 312-464-1000. Please note that we do not have a campaign hotel blocked for the conference. A list of other nearby hotel options is included in the memo. We encourage you to make your hotel reservations ASAP – hotel rooms are limited since the weekend of October 10th & 11th is the Columbus Day and Chicago Marathon.
Schedule & Agenda: We are in the process of confirming our speakers and issue panelists as well as Senator Barack Obama’s time slot. A general outline of the program it stands now – please note this is subject to change.
Friday– Opening Session, Campaign Strategy & Polling Update, Private Reception: Highlighting Extraordinary Women Leaders
Saturday – Issues Panel Discussions & Lunch with Michelle Obama
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POLLS ON PALIN — Your Vote Counts!
PBS’ Bill Moyer’s NOW is taking a poll on whether you think Palin is qualified to be VP of the U.S. It takes TWO CLICKS to respond:
Currently the Yes’s are winning …
Please. Take a moment to go to this URL and vote — takes one second:
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html
As of Tuesday evening 9/16: Yes votes are 56% and No votes at 43% … as of Friday, 9/19 noon: Yes votes are 40%, No votes are 52%, Not Sure is 6% … as of Monday, 9/22 at 3:25: Yes votes are 51%; No votes are 47%
Once you enter your vote you’re able to see current voting results.
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GOOD REGISTRATION IDEA from a California friend
Groups having open houses, flea markets or garbage sales might want to consider calling the local Obama get-out-the-vote office and suggest they put a table out in front to register people. Seems that someone in St. Louis did this, and the campaign was thrilled with the idea.
As my friend Diane says: “You can’t get more grass roots than a neighborhood garage sale …”
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PLANNED PARENTHOOD UNDER FIRE
I’ve received the following email from NY and Chicago and debated whether to include it here as I wasn’t sure whether it would help or hurt Obama …. However, there was an article in The New York Times this morning (Friday, Sept 29) that made up my mind. Authored by Hillary Clinton and Cecile Richards (President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America) “Blocking Care for Women” talks about a Bush-pushed proposed-rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would govern family planning. Read this article and then decide if you’d like to move forward with what the following email suggests … or … donate on your own … or … make yourself heard in a different way …
“Dear Friends:
We may have thought we wanted a woman on a national political ticket, but the joke has really been on us, hasn’t it? Are you as sick in your stomach as I am at the thought of Sarah Palin as Vice President of the United States?
Since Palin gave her speech accepting the Republican nomination for the Vice Presidency, Barack Obama’s campaign has raised over $10 million dollars [much more since this was written]. Some of you may already be supporting the Obama campaign financially; others of you may still be a little over the primaries. None of you, however, can be happy with Palin’s selection, e specially on her positions on women’s issues. So may I suggest the following fiendishly brilliant alternative?
Make a donation to Planned Parenthood. In Sarah Palin’s name. And here’s the good part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. Here’s the link to the Planned Parenthood website:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org. You’ll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the “in Sarah Palin’s honor” card. I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is:
McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street
1st Floor
Arlington, VA 22202
Feel free to send this along to all your friends and urge them to do the same.“
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PERTINENT PALIN EDITORIAL: Maybe the first indication of the turn around on Palin?
A respected conservative editorial writer, David Brooks, comes out on “Why Experience Matters” and that Palin doesn’t have it — Tuesday, Sept. 16 in The New York Times. article, Brooks also writes that other respected conservative editorial writers like George Will are “suggesting in different ways that she is unready …”
And an article on healthcare and what the McCain/Palin ticket is espousing: “McCain’s Radical Agenda” by Bob Herbert in The New York Times, Sept. 15 … here”s the lead:”Talk about a shock to the system. Has anyone bothered to notice the radical changes that John McCain and Sarah Palin are planning for the nation’s health insurance system? These are changes that will set in motion nothing less than the dismantling of the employer-based coverage that protects most American families …”
TV WATCH
The Saturday Night Live skit of Sarah Palin (Tina Fey) and Hillary Clinton (Amy Poehler) that you’re reading about from Sat., Sept. 13 … (Forgive the advertising, NBC Universal made YouTube remove the video of the skit.) And, yes, I do like Hillary.
Sarah Palin Revealed on CNN, Sat., Sept. 13
Joe Bieden Revealed on CNN, Sat, Sept. 13
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PALIN EMAIL PICK-of-the-WEEK — Scroll all the way down to add your thoughts in the comment box.
From: Larry Carlson
Like so many of you, I have been receiving propaganda from all sides on the political debate (culture war as some are referring to it). I have really been trying to understand, appreciate and learn from this experience. So far this is what I think I know:
- If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re “exotic, different.”
- If you grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, you’re a quintessential American story.
- If your name is Barack, you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
- If you name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.
- If you graduate from Harvard law School, you are unstable.
- If you attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.
- If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.
- If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.
- If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.
- If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.
- If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
- If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system, while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you’re very responsible.
- If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.
- If you’re husband is nicknamed “First Dude”, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
As I learn more I will send it on. This is fascinating,
Larry
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THIS PAST WEEK: ON TV/in the PRESS
Three recent editorial’s worth reading that will concern you but that do illuminate the real issues in terms of how the Democrats see it and how the Republicans see it as roughly Politics versus Culture; Positions versus Personality. Not surprisingly, each party and their constituencies define those words differently — hence, a very huge disconnect.
In The Wall Street Journal Peggy Noonan writes “Miles to Go,“ OPINION, pg A13 … and I quote:“Democrats, hit reset. Accept the fact that the race has changed utterly, that you’re up against a ticket that has captured the public imagination. Now you must go out and recapture it.””Most crucially, the snobbery of it [how the Democrats attacked Palin], the meanness of it, reminded the entire country, for the first time in a decade, what it is they don’t like about the left. Really, America had forgotten.””The Democrats were up against Xena the Warrior Princess and came across, in response, as pale-lipped Puritans who actually, at the end of the day, don’t really like women all that much.”
Also in The Wall Street Journal’s WEEKEND JOURNAL Essay Lee Siegel gives us a historical and current primer with “The Triumph of Culture Over Politics,“ pg W1 … and I quote:“Liberals always think there’s something broken in politics. Conservatives always think there’s something wrong with the culture. Why that gives Sarah Palin and The Republicans the edge in November.”
In The New York Times Bob Herbert writes “She’s Not Ready,” OP-ED, pg A19 … and I quote:”The silly season descends into absurdity.””For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on ‘American Idol’.”[Referring to Palin’s lack of understanding as to what the Bush doctrine is], “The Bush doctrine, which flung open to the doors to the catastrophe in Iraq, was such a fundamental aspect of the administration’s foreign policty that it staggers the imagination that we chould have someone no further than a whisper away from the White House who doesn’t even know what it is … Her problem (now ours) is that she is not well versed on the critical matters confronting the country at one of the most crucial turning points in history.”
Here’s the first (Thursday, Sept 11) interview with Sarah Palin and Charles Gibson broadcast on “ABC World News” and the second portion (Friday, Sept. 12) on ABC’s 20/20. Some of the press reviewed with Jim Rutenberg on the front page of The New York Times (Friday, Sept 12) writes: “In First Big Interview, Palin says ‘I’m Ready’ for the Job.” Alessandra Stanley, also for The New York Times, writes in The TV Watch: “Showing a Confidence, In Prepared Answers“ (page A19).
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From The Huffington Post and posted September 9 at 1:32 PM; now being circulated by email (italics for emphasis in article are snoety’s) … For the total article click: Frightened by McCain’s Post-Convention Bounce? Three Things You Can Do Personally to Affect the Outcome of the Election, by Robert Creamer. Here are some excerpts:“Over the last couple of days I’ve received more calls and emails than I can count from people with fear in their voices. They want to know what to make of McCain’s post- convention bounce in the polls. They want to know if Obama can still win. Most of all they want to know what they can do to help …McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin moved a lot of white women. The Washington Post poll released today showed white women shifting from an eight-point pre-convention lead for Obama to a 12-point McCain advantage …… Much depends on what all of us choose to do now …
The website www.Fivethirtyeight.com employs a sophisticated projection model to predict electoral outcomes, and it still gives 61.2% odds that Obama will win in November.There are three steps that every one of us can take that will actually impact directly the ultimate outcome of this race:
1). Remember that you are Obama’s best campaign commercial. …
The message that is most persuasive at convincing someone that Obama is “safely on their side” is having someone who is like them talk to them about why they support Obama – and why they are against McCain-Palin. “If Mary or Sarah likes Obama I guess he must be OK.
“If you want to help win this election, it means you might have to break the “taboo’s” about not talking about politics with your neighbor or your co-worker. It means you have to bring up the campaign over the lunch table or the backyard fence. It means you can’t just go along when someone says something like “Palin is such a breath of fresh air.” No, you must tell them, actually she’s never been for “reform” and she embraces all of the economic policies that allow big companies to make tons of money while incomes of people like us fall.

Want to make calls to swing voters like you in swing states? The Obama campaign can hook you up with lists to call and get a report from you on the outcome through their website, www.MyBarackObama.com. And don’t feel like the conversations you have are just a drop in the bucket. There will be hundreds of thousands of other volunteers around America who will be doing the same thing.
2). Don’t unwittingly contribute to their narrative.
Most swing voters aren’t excessively focused on “experience.” They think the gang with lots of experience has done a pretty crummy job, at least for them. They want someone who is “on their side.” One reason that many white women like and identify with Palin – at least at first blush – is because they think she identifies with them.When Progressives make “elitist” attacks on Palin, they just reinforce the right wing narrative that the “Elitist Eastern Establishment” is the problem. Don’t patronize the very people we are trying to convince.
From most people’s points of view, the problem with the McCain-Palin ticket isn’t so much that Palin is from a small town in rural Alaska and hasn’t got the experience to run the country. The argument that is convincing to normal people is that neither McCain nor Palin are what they claim to be – reformers or agents of change. Their campaign is being run by lobbyists for the biggest corporate interests in America–the same people who ran the Bush campaign. And they are committed to the economic policies that make average people’s incomes drop and reward the very rich.McCain and Palin act as though they identify with the interests of the guys in the NASCAR grandstand and the women at the PTA – but they are doing the bidding of the guys from Wall Street and the women wearing $4,500 outfits like the one Cindy McCain donned for the Republican Convention.Our assault on McCain and Palin must never be done from an elitist perspective, but from a populist perspective.
3). Take personal responsibility to win this election.
More than any election in modern political history, this election will be decided by the work of millions of people who talk to their neighbors, make small donations on the internet and – most importantly – demand that every voter go out to vote.And I mean demand that every voter go to the polls. To win, we need to change the electorate. In this election, friends don’t let friends not vote. There is too much at stake. The damage of another four years of Bush-McCain economic and foreign policy would be catastrophic for the future of our children, and children all over the world.The key point is this: don’t just whine to your friends about what the campaign should do, or the party should do, or the candidate should do.
Take personal responsibility to do the two things that will win: persuade swing voters, and mobilize voters who won’t vote unless they are motivated to do so.The Obama campaign has the best field operation in the history of presidential politics. Join it. Take an assignment. Make contributions on the Internet. Hold a fundraiser. Write a letter to the editor. Most important: don’t sit on the sidelines.The recent polls should provide a call to arms to everyone who wants change in America or believes in progressive values.”….
My firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, ran the field operation for a wonderful congressional candidate in south Florida in 2000. We did a great job. We knocked on every door. We pulled out lots of votes. But we lost by 550 votes. It was the same 550 votes that beat Al Gore and gave us George Bush. If we had just dragged out one more Democrat per precinct in the closing hours of that Election Day, America would have been spared the nightmare of the last eight years. Each of us could decide the outcome of this election, too.The work we do over the next 56 days could be the most important that any of us will do in our lives. Let’s not miss this precious opportunity to make history.“
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win”, available on Amazon.com.
What Gloria Steinem wrote in “Palin: Wrong Woman, Wrong Message,” in The Los Angeles Times, September 4, 2008
“Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger”The complete article: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,7915118.story
Snoety’s hoping to get permission to attribute this to its writer shortly: “I love Governor Sarah Palin.
I love the fact that she can stand on the shores of Alaska, watch the ice melt precipitously, and still deny the danger of global climate change and the role of human beings in it.
I love the fact that she can argue for the drilling of oil, a product that takes millions of years for nature to produce, and still believe in Creationism, which doesn’t allow enough time for nature to produce it.
I love the fact that she can love her pregnant teenage daughter and still advocate Abstinence Only sex education.
I love the fact that she can be married to a union member and still promote policies that weaken unions.
I love the fact that she can look all soft and feminine and still be, as she herself said, a pit-bull with lipstick.
I love that the most.
I love that the most because I live next to a pit-bull. His name is Rusty and he is just the cutest dog. I keep dog treats with me all the time, and I always give him one whenever I go into or out of my house. True I’m afraid that if I don’t bribe him to let me pass he will rip my throat out, but still I genuinely love this dog. That’s why I plan to purchase some lipstick today, smear it on his mouth while he is preoccupied with a dog biscuit, and take him to the Republican Party headquarters for a one man one dog pro-Sarah Palin rally. It’s only half a mile from my house, and I’m sure the people there will love the gesture.
John McCain made a brilliant choice in picking Governor Palin as his running mate. I am more convinced than ever that the Republicans will retain the White House, and while I fear for my country having to endure four more years of an anti-science, anti-reason, anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-education, anti-Constitution government, I also know that America gets the leadership it deserves.
But the future may be more interesting then a simple return to the good old days of back alley abortions and the Cold War. Here are three possible scenarios.
One: John McCain wins the presidency in November. He starts wars with Iran and Russia triggering a joint Arab-Russian invasion of Israel thus initiating the Second Coming of Jesus who slaughters billions of nonbelievers as part of God’s Pro-Life agenda.
Two: John McCain wins the presidency in November. He starts wars with Iran and Russia triggering a joint Arab-Russian invasion of Israel, but Jesus fails to return, perhaps angry with John for not putting Joe Lieberman, a fellow Jew, on the ticket.
Three: John McCain wins the presidency in November. If he survives his first term, and given his age and the stress of the job and the coming wars with Iran and Russia he may not, he will decline to run for a second term. Vice President Palin then becomes either the first woman president (because John is ill or worse), or runs as the Republican nominee in 2012. In either case, Saran Palin will run for president in four years and opposing her will be another lip-glossed pit-bull, this one in a pantsuit (Rusty will love wearing one of those), and we are in for the most wicked battle in American politics since Burr shot Hamilton.Oh, and then Jesus back comes after that.“
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In a message dated 9/9/2008 4:29:07 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, sharon90265@earthlink.net writes:Like Palin, I have served as Mayor in the small town of Malibu and still serve in public office.
Like Palin, I have raised children, two daughters and two sons. Like Palin, I have been a community activist. Unlike Palin, I attended college, got a degree, and got a job in the public sector. What’s my point? THE THOUGHT OF ME BEING A HEART BEAT AWAY FROM THE U.S. PRESIDENCY IS SCARY, BECAUSE I AM NOT QUALIFIED TO BE VICE PRESIDENT, AND NEITHER IS SHE!Sharon BarovskyMalibu, CA
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If you received this photo as an email from many places (as I did), you should know that it is NOT real; it’s a photo that has been edited with Photoshop … 
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Sent to me from a friend and written by Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for “The Vagina Monologues.” She wrote the following about Sarah Palin (we chose to bold some of the type).
DRILL, DRILL, DRILL
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it’s their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don’t like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story — connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God’s plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin’s view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, “It was a task from God.”
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist’s baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God’s name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don’t move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, “Drill Drill Drill.” I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life.
Eve Ensler,September 5, 2008
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From DK Holland:John McCain and Sarah Palin put out a new TV ad that broadcasts what news organizations are calling “naked lies.”The Obama campaign is fighting back with a hard-hitting response ad. Watch the video, [let others know] and join this movement for change:http://my.barackobama.com/spreadthetruth
Sent in concerning that librarian we’ve all been hearing about with a quote — marked by “quotation marks“ from Time magazine, “How Sarah Palin Mastered Politics” by Nathan Thornburgh, Thursday, September 4, 2008:
[Former Wasilla mayor] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.Mary Ellen Baker resigned from her library director job in 1999.
NOTE FROM SNOETY: The list of books you may have received by email as being banned from the library is not accurate. NO books were actually banned, according to news reports we personally heard on CNN and read about in numerous publications.
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The following email was also received from several different parts of the country:Check out www.womenagainstsarahpalin.org; then please forward to women everywhere.
“Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters:We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce — on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate –that has a real possibility of becoming fact.
Like us, as American women, you probably share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform,environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood against her), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the planet.
We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and altogether devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin’s political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we’ve so demonstrably benefited from.First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us.She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women.It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters.
We want to disagree, publicly.We invite you to reply here: womensaynopalin@gmail.com with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation. Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence.We will post your responses on a blog called “Women Against Sarah Palin,” which we intend to publicize as widely as possible.
Please send us your reply at your earliest convenience — the greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.Thank you for your time and action.Sincerely,Quinn Latimer and Lyra KilstonNew York , NYwomensaynopalin@gmail.com
***PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!***
If you send this to 20 women quickly, you could be surprised bya country that takes your concerns seriously.Stranger things have happened.
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Snoety has received the following email many different times from various parts of the USA (and France). As it turns out NPR also talked about this email on radio. If you want to listen to NPR (click here to hear report) and if you want a different link with more info and attribution that I haven’t included below, click here … It’s all very enlightening. According to factcheck.org, the person who wrote the following post is definitely real, but they are still in the process of checking the facts. This is the post everyone seems to be talking about in response to the Washington Independent article entitled “The Reform Candidate?”
Dear friends,So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .
Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in common: their gender and their good looks. :)You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .Thanks, Anne
ABOUT SARAH PALIN
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.
She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.
It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.
She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there” and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.
Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.She’s smart.Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.
Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.
As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska . Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.
She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.
Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).
As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska ‘s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper.
Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.
When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).
As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.
As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.
She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team.
When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiative that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.
McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.
CLAIM VS FACT*
“Hockey mom”: true for a few years*
“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since*
“NRA supporter”: absolutely true* social conservative: mixed.
Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconstitutional).*
pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
“Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska . No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
political maverick: not at all
gutsy: absolutely!
open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
“a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.* fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents* pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history.
pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.
WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska ), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”.
Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.
CAVEATS:I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla , and I can’t recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall — they are swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.
You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my “about 5,000”, up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.Anne
Snoety’s personal take as written in the following posts the first week of the announcement: “Let’s just call him McIm…” and “It’s “a girl”! Well I’m insulted …”
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