Sarah Palin the populist has become Sarah Palin the free trader. In a wide-ranging and well-received speech in Hong Kong, Palin supported a more Libertarian free-market approach, slamming the recent imposition of tariffs on Chinese tires by the Obama Administration.

Palin spoke at a closed-door investor forum organized by CLSA in which no media representatives were allowed. While attendees were reportedly impressed with her preparation and command of the facts, Palin only took pre-approved questions.

The New York Times reported:

“The speech was wide-ranging, very balanced, and she beat all expectations,” said Doug A. Coulter, head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners.

“She didn’t sound at all like a far-right-wing conservative. She seemed to be positioning herself as a libertarian or a small-c conservative,” he said, adding that she mentioned both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. “She brought up both those names.”…

Melvin Goodé, a regional marketing consultant, thought Mrs. Palin chose Hong Kong because, he said, it was “a place where things happen and where freedom can be expanded upon.”…

Mr. Goodé, an African-American who said he did some campaign polling for President Obama, said Mrs. Palin mentioned President Obama three times on Wednesday.

“And there was nothing derogatory in it, no sleight of hand, and believe me, I was listening for that,” he said, adding that Mrs. Palin referred to Mr. Obama as “our president,” with the emphasis on “our.”

Mr. Goodé, a New Yorker who said he would never vote for Mrs. Palin, said she acquitted herself well.

“They really prepared her well,” he said. “She was articulate and she held her own. I give her credit. They’ve tried to categorize her as not being bright. She’s bright.”

Edward here. Notice how the NY Times story mentions only one attendee’s race. What does Goodé’s being Black have to do with this story? The writer, Mark McDonald, should be condemned for inserting this language as he is obviously trying to spin the story, suggesting that even a black pro-Obama supporter thought well of Palin’s performance. If he’s going to spin it that way, then just say it directly. The way he words it is cringe-worthy.

This speech and others to come should be seen not only as a way for her to earn shed loads of cash, but as a way to position herself to lead the Republican party ahead of the 2012 Presidential election.  It seems that she is re-casting herself as a libertarian to do so. She has already come out against healthcare, positioning her opposition to Obama’s plan as libertarian. Attendees of the CLSA speech report that she spoke about this subject in Hong Kong as well.  However, she also took on the tire tariffs issue, rejecting an inviting populist take on the issue in favor of more free-market rhetoric (for more on the issue see my post “Murder-Suicide in Chimerica”).

Not everyone was impressed.

“She started the speech with the Alaskan fishing industry, which I think is a safe topic for her,” said Suyeon An of RCM Asia Pacific Ltd, who left before Palin stopped talking. “She was avoiding the important economic issues. She tried to talk some about Hong Kong in general, but it was nothing specific. It was a very safe speech, boring I have to say.”

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• Palin exceeds expectations but still loses debate
• Why Sarah Palin was a good pick for the GOP
• Obama leads McCain by 2 points

Here’s a little video that should teach you why you need to erase all data permanently before you sell or get rid of any computer, Blackberry or computing device.

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• John McCain on SNL

Below are the videos of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live.” I thought it showed good humor on her part to be on the show. I give her full credit despite what some critics might say. Take a look.

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Conservative U.S. Columnist Kathleen Parker was a guest on Stephen Colbert’s show last night. She gained notoriety for her criticism of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. Below is a clip of her on Colbert giving her two cents on whether she has changed her mind about the candidates and why.

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This from Politico. It’s hard to say at this point how this will change the race for the White House.

Sarah Palin violated the trust Alaskans placed in her as their governor in how she handled the events surrounding the firing of a state official who had refused to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper, according to a legislative report released Friday night.

The long-awaited report into a scandal that’s become known as “Troopergate” found that Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, fired the state’s public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, partly because he refused to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, who was locked in a bitter custody battle with Palin’s sister, Molly McCann.

But the report — commissioned by the Legislature and carried out by an independent investigator — also found that Palin was within her “constitutional and statutory authority” to dismiss Monegan.

Meg Stapleton, a spokeswoman for John McCain’s presidential campaign, asserted that the report showed Palin “acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan” and that “the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior.”

Related posts:

• McCain chooses Palin as his running mate
• Palin exceeds expectations but still loses debate
• Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live”
• Palin: Asia speech re-casts her as Libertarian and slams Obama on China
• Palin: a tidbit I received from a friend by a Wasilla resident (update)

The YouTube video below is gaining a wide audience on the Internet. It shows an Ohio blogger interviewing some McCain-Palin supporters after a speech and rally by Sarah Palin in that state earlier this week.

The blogger’s question to attendees of the rally is fairly straightforward: “Do you think Barack Obama is a terrorist?”

Watch the video to see the answers.

Related posts
Is Barack Obama palling around with Terrorists?

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Check out Jon Stewart’s take on this.

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In the Vice-Presidential debate, Sarah Palin, in one of her few unscripted moments, gave wholehearted support for Dick Cheney’s dangerous expansion of Vice Presidential power. Joe Biden vigourosly disagreed, calling Cheney “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.” I have to agree with Biden.

Obviously, George Bush has been the most unpopular President in the United States since Presidential polling began. However, it is Dick Cheney, his Vice President, who is responsible for many of the disastrous policy mistakes that has discredited the United States Presidency around the globe. Barton Gellman has written an interesting book, Angler: The Shadow Presidency of Dick Cheney, that chronicles how Cheney is responsible for much of what ails America, in foreign policy and domestically.

When he leaves Washington, we must be clear that no U.S. Vice President should ever be allowed to exercise the degree of power as has Cheney.

The Vice Presidential debate comments are in the video below:

Book Review

Unquestionably, Dick Cheney has been the most influential vice-president in U.S. history. Especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he took a remarkably expansive view of the ill-defined powers of his office. He energetically enlarged his own role relative to that of the president, and the power of the White House relative to that of other branches of government. It was nothing less than a constitutional revolution. Angler (the title comes from Cheney’s Secret Service codename) is the best account so far of the vice-president’s drive for “power without limit”. It is an absorbing if depressing book.

Barton Gellman bases his narrative on a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles that he and Jo Becker (now with The New York Times) wrote for The Washington Post last year. He draws on the reporting of other journalists too. Readers familiar with the original articles in The Post, and steeped in recent books by Jane Mayer (The Dark Side), Jack Goldsmith (The Terror Presidency), Bob Woodward (too many to mention), and others, will find no striking new disclosures. But they will find, in one place, a remarkable tale extremely well told.

Cheney emerges as a difficult man to like and one who prides himself on the fact. Yet he is not the one-dimensional monster of popular lore, a tyrant for all seasons, driven by lust for power for its own sake. He “served the country with devotion, at some cost to himself”, Gellman writes. He “suffered eight cardiac events in eight years. He relinquished millions of dollars in stock options and income forgone. The author found no evidence of self-dealing … involving Halliburton or anything else.” In Cheney’s mind, the administration he co-led overthrew not the constitution but one contested – and, after 9/11, suicidal – interpretation of the constitution. He believed that the country was in mortal danger and did what he deemed necessary.

From the beginning he was a shrewd manipulator of the people around him, no respecter of custom or precedent, and a believer in the maxim “personnel is policy”. Cheney had served as President Ford’s chief of staff and the first President Bush’s defence secretary. As vice-president, there was little he did not already know about Washington power politics and the importance of putting the right ally in the right place. Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the third member of the new ruling triumvirate, was an old and trusted friend. Hired as the vice-president’s lawyer, David Addington became the main architect of the new constitution.

Cheney’s relationship with Bush was solid. He had been the head of Bush’s vice-presidential search committee. Bush chose him without interviewing anybody else. They had an understanding and the pattern was set. The president was content to lean on his deputy. Cheney could not have appointed a better boss – better even than having the top job himself, since that involved a lot of useless ceremonial and pandering to public opinion.

To talk of Cheney as co-president is scarcely an exaggeration, the book shows – especially during the first term. After 2004, and what was almost a mass exodus from the Justice Department over torture, secret surveillance and presidential prerogatives, Bush was a little less trusting of Cheney’s judgment and began paying more attention to other advisers. Still, reading Angler one often feels that at crucial moments Bush even chose to be the junior partner.

In an interview this year, Cheney was asked what he thought of the fact that most Americans, according to polls, believed the Iraq war was a mistake. “So?” he replied. The interviewer pressed on: “You don’t care what people think?” Cheney said: “Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the civil war. He never would have succeeded … ”

Yes, says the author, Lincoln ploughed on when doing so was unpopular. But that was not all. “He rallied the people and won them over … It was not mere force of will that distinguished Lincoln, but successful leadership of a public nearing despair.” Cheney saw no need to bring the country along. That was not his idea of leadership and it is why his remorseless drive for presidential power has left the presidency so enfeebled.

Clive Crook is the FT’s chief Washington commentator

Sources
Out of the shadows – FT
VP Debate: Biden – “Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.” – Crooks and Liars

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• The less optimistic view of Treasury’s handling of the crisis
• Are NATO expansion plans smart?
• The experience canard
• Why Sarah Palin was a good pick for the GOP

Very funny!

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• Wilting Over Waffles
• Get ready for Biden v. Palin tonight
• Palin exceeds expectations but still loses debate
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The NBC News anchor apparently has a sense of humor. I found this video on Brian Williams mimicking Sarah Palin via the Huffington Post. Maybe Brian was miffed because Palin decided to talk to Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson but left him twiddling his thumbs.

Regardless of the reason, it’s pretty funny. The clip is just over 10 minutes long.

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This debate was all about Sarah Palin. After a disastrous couple of weeks and sinking poll numbers, she risked torpedoing the Republican’s chances entirely. She needed to show her mettle

The consensus with pundits who watched the one and only U.S. Vice Presidential debate last night was that Sarah Palin did a very good job in debating Joe Biden — much better than expected. However, they believe she came up short and Biden won the debate.

I watched the debate and I, too, was impressed with Sarah Palin’s performance. She did much to erase the negative reviews left by her recent interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. But, it will not be enough to stem the tide for the McCain-Palin ticket.

My colleague Marshall Auerback and I have been discussing the debate and we independently came up with the same assessment: Sarah Palin needed to erase her recent poor interview performances and she held her own for the first hour or so. But, Biden outclassed her on substance as she faltered on the foreign policy side of things.

Marshall had this to say:

Sarah the soundbite Palin sounded exceptionally scripted. When she got questions that were off the talking points, she simply refused to answer…

And I said to my wife, “If she uses the word ‘maverick’ one more time, I’m going to throw a rock at the TV.”

Surprisingly, Biden came across as authentic which was something she was supposed to do. At one point, he choked up and Focus Group ratings on CNN soared. When he choked up over losing his wife and child in a car accident in which his sons were critically injured — and she went straight back into “John McCain is a maverick.” I truly expected her to express human sympathy with Biden, and her failure to do so showed me something deeply wrong with her. When something wasn’t on the “script” she couldn’t cope. It was like a short-circuit went off in her brain.

She called the top commander in Afghanistan “General McClellan”; his name is David McKiernan. She said the troop levels in Iraq are down to pre-surge levels; they’re not. She simply didn’t answer a lot of the questions. Moderator Gwen Ifill tried to pull her back, but Palin is stubborn; she had her talking points, and she stuck to them and OPENLY ADMITTED THAT SHE WASN’T GOING TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THAT WERE ASKED. Do you think she’ll have this kind of flexibility if, God forbid, she should ever become President?

This debate was more revealing than the Presidential one last week because it became very clear that she simply doesn’t have the substance to be VP much less President which reflects badly on John McCain’s judgement.

That McCain is no longer campaigning in Michigan tells me he’s in big trouble.

I am a little less harsh on Palin, but I agree with the thrust of Marshall’s comments. I had actually been pretty disappointed with Palin’s preparation in the Gibson and Couric interviews because she came out of the gate so well, with a super Republican Convention performance. (I say this not because I want her and McCain to win — I don’t since I support Obama and Biden. However, I did want to see her perform well since she was only the second woman VP candidate in U.S. history) Her disastrous performances showed me that she was not prepared to be Vice President because she did not have a firm grip on substantive issues that I would expect a VP to know something about.

But, she was very well prepped. She looked confident. She was well-spoken and she had a fairly good command of the issues — although it seemed her performance was very scripted — she even gave a disclaimer at the outset that she wasn’t going to answer questions the way her opponent and the moderator wanted, but was going to talk to the people through the TV screen. That’s a great line but she obviously was doing that in order to NOT stray from her talking points and get blown up with a huge gaffe.

Biden made no major gaffes and treated his opponent with the respect she deserves, focusing his attack on John McCain. He had an obvious command of issues and spoke fluently on all subjects put his way. He was impressive — perhaps more impressive than Obama was in his debate.

On the whole, the only major gaffe I saw throughout the debate was Palin’s apparent lack of sympathy when Biden showed obvious emotion in talking about the death of his first wife. It was a very revealing moment. It suggested to me at least that she is not only scripted on substance but on style too.

Feel free to share any of your thoughts and comments.

Related posts:

• Get ready for Biden v. Palin tonight
• Troopergate report: Palin abused authority
• McCain chooses Palin as his running mate
• Obama wins debate
• The SNL version of the Palin-Biden debate

This has to be one of the most anticipated U.S. Vice Presidential debates in the last quarter century. It is as big as Bush – Ferraro and Gore – Quayle – Stockdale. I certainly will be watching.

Partial as I am to Barack Obama, I was not anticipating Joe Biden as his running mate. However, I sense that it was a good choice and the two make a good team.

John McCain surprised everyone in picking Sarah Palin for his running mate, and, despite a left-wing freakout, I thought she deserved the benefit of the doubt. Recently, it has become obvious even to me that she is not well-prepared and knowledgeable about many issues of substance on the national agenda. That is disappointing.

But, for what it’s worth, here are two CBS Evening News clips of Katie Couric asking both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin to explain their views.

Enjoy tonight’s debate.

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• McCain chooses Palin as his running mate
• Palin exceeds expectations but still loses debate
• Katie Couric: What newspapers do YOU read?
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In her interview with Sarah Palin, Katie Couric asked the vice-presidential candidate what newspapers she reads to get current on world affairs. Palin’s response was: “ALL of them.” Take a look at the video below.

Before the last week or so, I was willing to give Sarah Palin the benefit of the doubt. Now, It’s dawning on me that she’s not very informed. Having this person one heart beat away from the Presidency during the greatest economic crisis in 80 years is, quite frankly, frightening.

For what it’s worth, I don’t read any newspapers, except online.

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Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin spoke with Charles Gibson of ABC News last night about national security. This is her first major media interview since being picked as John McCain’s running mate. The video is in two parts and lasts just over 13 minutes.

See them below.

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The Economist, like many other Libertarian-minded publications and individuals, has soured on John McCain. One week ago their cover page story was “Bring back the real McCain” and this past week their storyline on McCain was that the man simply has poor judgment. What gives?

What gives is that McCain, above all else is a politician — and an opportunistic one at that. This is certainly the view the BBC audio documentary of John McCain that I profiled last week gives.

It has to be said that the Palin pick was a calculated gamble by McCain, one of the riskiest plays we have seen in U.S. presidential politics — certainly more risky than the Dan Quayle pick by George H. W. Bush in 1988. However, the pick is paying off in spades right now. Palin has been a darling of the media, she gave a thrilling performance at the Republican National Convention and she has taken the spotlight completely off Barack Obama.

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com

But, John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate says more about John McCain’s judgment than it says about Sarah Palin. It was an obvious ploy to shore up his credentials amongst evangelicals of the south, who have fled the Democratic party in droves after the dismantling of Jim Crow by Lyndon Johnson. It was also a ploy to potentially siphon off Hillary Clinton supporters from Barack Obama. Race is still a factor in America, and many of those who voted for Clinton in the primaries may be looking for an excuse to support anyone but Barack Obama. And, most importantly, the Palin pick was a naked ploy to win back the Maverick, change-the-status-quo imae, McCain has cultivated throughout his career. Barack Obama was stealing his thunder and he needed an antidote — think of Sarah Palin as kryptonite to a Superman-like Obama.

But, more importantly, his picking Palin showed McCain — contrary to his reputation — to be a typical politician, yet again willing to sacrifice ideals for votes. He picked Palin to be candidate for the second highest office in the country in a rushed and chaotic process, throwing to the wind arguments about foreign policy credentials and experience. In retrospect, it is obvious that she was not fully vetted and that McCain picked her out of pure political calculation, having only met her once before deciding on her as his running mate.

The Economist

The Economist says this about her selection:

Mrs Palin was greeted like the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan by the delegates, furious at her mauling at the hands of the “liberal media”. And she delivered a tub-thumping speech, underlining her record as a reforming governor and advocate of more oil-drilling, and warning her enemies not to underestimate her (“the difference between a hockey mum and a pitbull—lipstick”). But once the cheering and the chanting had died down, serious questions remained.

The political calculations behind Mr McCain’s choice hardly look robust. Mrs Palin is not quite the pork-busting reformer that her supporters claim. She may have become famous as the governor who finally killed the infamous “bridge to nowhere”—the $220m bridge to the sparsely inhabited island of Gravina, Alaska. But she was in favour of the bridge before she was against it (and told local residents that they weren’t “nowhere to her”). As mayor of Wasilla, a metropolis of 9,000 people, she initiated annual trips to Washington, DC, to ask for more earmarks from the state’s congressional delegation, and employed Washington lobbyists to press for more funds for her town.

Nor is Mrs Palin well placed to win over the moderate and independent voters who hold the keys to the White House. Mr McCain’s main political problem is not energising his base; he enjoys more support among Republicans than Mr Obama does among Democrats. His problem is reaching out to swing voters at a time when the number of self-identified Republicans is up to ten points lower than the number of self-identified Democrats. Mr McCain needs to attract roughly 55% of independents and 15% of Democrats to win the election. But it is hard to see how a woman who supports the teaching of creationism rather than contraception, and who is soon to become a 44-year-old grandmother, helps him with soccer moms in the Philadelphia suburbs. A Rasmussen poll found that the Palin pick made 31% of undecided voters less likely to plump for Mr McCain and only 6% more likely.

The moose in the room, of course, is her lack of experience. When Geraldine Ferraro was picked as Walter Mondale’s running-mate, she had served in the House for three terms. Even the hapless Dan Quayle, George Bush senior’s sidekick, had served in the House and Senate for 12 years. Mrs Palin, who has been the governor of a state with a population of 670,000 for less than two years, is the most inexperienced candidate for a mainstream party in modern history.

Inexperienced and Bush-level incurious. She has no record of interest in foreign policy, let alone expertise. She once told an Alaskan magazine: “I’ve been so focused on state government; I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.” She obtained an American passport only last summer to visit Alaskan troops in Germany and Kuwait. This not only blunts Mr McCain’s most powerful criticism of Mr Obama. It also raises serious questions about the way he makes decisions.

Irrespective of how Palin was picked, she is working out quite well for the Republicans — they now lead in the polls. The Democrats have been unable to figure out how to get after her and have been quite condescending and snobbish in their efforts to rebut her qualifications for the job.

The Democrats had better watch out at the debates too. Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine recently said, after watching video of Palin’s 2006 Alaska debate performance that one “saw last week that she knows how to wrestle with a TelePrompTer and a prepared text, but Sarah Palin is also very good on her feet.”

Where do I stand? I wasn’t going to vote for McCain anyway — he has long ago shown that he is mostly a political animal and not a true reformer with a temperament for governing. And although I like Palin’s verve and charm, her politics are simply too extreme — I am even less likely to vote for McCain now. I sense many moderates or independents feel the same way. However, the Republican base is now fired up and ready to go like Obama’s supporters.

Whether you like Palin or not, she has definitely changed the political calculus in this election.

Related posts
Palin: a tidbit I received from a friend by a Wasilla resident
Why Sarah Palin was a good pick for the GOP

Sources
The woman from nowhere, The Economist
Re: That Palin Debate, Time Magazine’s Swampland
Obama Palin and the Press, The Moderate Voice

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• Obama leads McCain by 2 points
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I received this e-mail from a friend that was originally penned by a resident of Wasilla, Alaska where Sarah Palin was mayor before becoming Governor of Alaska. It gives a fairly intimate look at Palin and how she got to where she is. Take it for what it is.

Democrats, beware.

UPDATE:apparently, this e-mail has now been released online here:

Crosscut.com

ABOUT SARAH PALIN
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Gov. Sarah Palin 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 percent 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, inex perienced, 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 o f 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, sh e 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 uncon situtional).
• 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?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

August 31, 2008

Related posts
A note on small towns and national politics
Why Sarah Palin was a good pick for the GOP
Cartoon: Glass ceiling

Related posts:

• McCain chooses Palin as his running mate
• John McCain has poor judgment, but Palin is working out quite well
• Troopergate report: Palin abused authority
• Katie Couric: What newspapers do YOU read?
• Obama leads McCain by 2 points

Mark Thoma has a thoughtful post on the news swirling around the Sarah Palin pick as VP candidate for the GOP. His point is that the Dems risk looking condescending and elitist toward small town America in their attacks on Palin and had better be careful.

Here is what Thoma has to say:

When you grow up in a small or mid-sized town, over time you come to realize that people from bigger towns, in general, have a condescending attitude about how and where you grew up. I think it starts to really dawn on you in junior high and high school as you begin interact with kids from bigger cities, and college certainly reinforces this feeling.

You couldn’t possibly be up on the latest cool trends, be as sophisticated, be as savvy, etc., as they are because you grew up out in the sticks.

People who live in these areas are not, however, fools. They think that the people who think this way – the city boys – lack even the basics of common sense, and certainly aren’t as rugged and tough as the country boys. They’d be lost outside the city. And they don’t think these people have anything to brag about in their own lives, not in a relative sense. They have their share of kids out of wedlock, divorces, drug use, whatever. They have absolutely no reason to feel superior to the rest of America, but yet they do. Or that’s how it feels anyway.

This is the feeling Sarah Palin wants to tap into. I haven’t seen the speech as I write this, but I’m guessing it will appeal to this emotion. That’s what the elitism charge is all about, to remind people in these areas that these people think they are better than they are, they look down upon their way of life. (same with the appeal to the devout church-going constituency, I think it’s the lack of respect they feel for their beliefs that is being exploited by the Right’s framing of the issues).

So Democrats have to be very careful not to stoke this emotion as they try and dissuade people from voting the McCain-Palin ticket (assuming it comes to be, which I assume it will). Any hint of condescension for this way of life and the traditions that come along with it will be tapped into and mined to the Republicans advantage.

Kids out of wedlock, divorce, crazy family members, affairs, that’s part of life, and trying to exploit any of that is a mistake. Making a big deal about being from a small town and using that to argue about credentials won’t work. If you grew up outside of a major city, you’re used to being thought of in that way, and they resent it. The target audience for the Palin selection doesn’t think politicians, academics, elites, etc. have any common sense about the world. You hear that over and over, the “anyone with common sense would know” type argument. They want no part of cities and the values they perceive to exist there, that way of life is very alien to them (what’s a community organizer?) They think their way of life is just fine, truth be told better even, the values, the quality of life, all of it, and any suggestion to the contrary will be met with resistance.

I fear that people crafting responses to the Palin selection do not understand this emotion, the lack of respect that people in these areas feel for their lifestyle, their intelligence, their way of life, etc. Attempts to bring down Palin that stoke these emotions will actually bring great sympathy.

Here’s another way of expressing what I’m trying to say.

Learning how to dress a deer in the field is something that happens on a hunting trip with your father, grandfather, uncle, maybe a few of their friends. It’s a family time, a time to bond as “men”, and it’s a tradition that has passed from father to son for as long as you can remember (my mom’s family helped to settle the area of California where I grew up). It’s partly men drinking and telling stories around the fire, partly the serious business of hunting (where alcohol is strictly forbidden). But most importantly it’s a family tradition, something that passes from father to son. You bring deer jerky to school to share with your friends as a symbol that you bagged a deer, that kind of thing. It’s embedded in the culture.

When we make fun of knowing how to field-dress a moose, we are also making fun of the family traditions behind it, and we send the wrong message to this constituency. Sarah Palin will appeal to this group, as well as to all the women who had to stay home while their brothers got to go with dad on these trips. She opens doors for their hopes too.

All I’m saying is that as we frame the response to her, we should do our best to understand the nature of the appeal she is making so as to avoid strategies that may backfire. The group they are appealing to doesn’t want Washington’s money, though that never hurts, they want respect. I think it’s that simple, and responses that don’t give this constituency the respect they believe they are due will likely be counterproductive.

I haven’t spent much time in really big cities, three and a half yeas in San Diego pretty much does it (and that was two different times that were years apart), and I’m a long way from living in a really small town like where I grew up. I live in a somewhat larger area now, around 200,000 total I think, maybe a bit less, but I’ve noticed that once you get outside of the University area and connect with the people who were born and raised here, the values aren’t much different from the small-town values I grew up around, the cultural distance is much closer than it is to, say, Portland or Seattle. I think there is a fairly large constituency here, large enough to pay attention to – it’s not just a bunch of small town folk whose collective numbers are of little relevance to the outcome of the election – and paying more attention to, and showing more respect for, the cultural values and traditions this group holds could make a big difference.

But I’m biased, and you can take or leave what I have to say. San Diego was great, I learned to surf when I was there a few years ago and that was really cool, but a life of crowded freeways never quite felt like home.

Source
Small Towns and Big Time Politics, Economist’s View

Related posts:

• McCain chooses Palin as his running mate
• Palin exceeds expectations but still loses debate
• Brian Williams: “I’m A Maverick, And I May Not Answer The Questions Tonight”
• Katie Couric: What newspapers do YOU read?
• Palin: a tidbit I received from a friend by a Wasilla resident (update)

This comes from Larry Wright of the Detroit News via the Moderate Voice

No related posts.

Independents like myself who support Barack Obama and Democrats are busy trying to tear down John McCain’s surprise pick for Vice President. They say she is less qualified than many other potential candidates that McCain could have selected. I would tend to agree. But, that’s neither here nor there. The question is whether she can help McCain win the presidency. And on that score she looks like a good gamble. Let me explain why?

Personality and confirmation bias

Before I go into why Palin is a good pick, I would like to admit that I am no fan of George Bush or his Republican party. In fact, I support Barack Obama — so this puts me into the anti-Palin camp. Yet, as a contrarian, I often like to argue the other side just to highlight the deficits in my own argument and to keep myself from falling into a confirmation bias trap. We need to think about the strategic implications of the Palin pick strictly on the merits, not based on our own biased preconceptions.

A large part of my argument actually has to do with confirmation bias in American politics — most people decide fairly quickly whether they like a national political candidate, based not on issues and agenda, but mostly on personality and cultural appeal. We tend to come to an assessment very quickly — within several television ‘encounters’ and then we filter new facts in or out based on that assessment, hardening our initial impression with time. The crux of my argument is that most people will make a choice about Sarah Palin based on her first few television appearances and then will filter all subsequent encounters with her using confirmation bias. This is the single most important reason that she must make an immediate positive first impression in her speech tonight and why the GOP must define her early — well before the debates. Democrats, who are already biased against the Republican party cannot look at this pick with any objectivity.

Sarah Palin is not Dan Quayle. She is photogenic, looks good on television, is a good public speaker and is very personable in person by all accounts. I’m not expecting any Potatoe gaffes. As a result, you have to ask: How many Hillary supporters will support her? My answer: potentially, a lot more than one might think. Are the issues Hillary was advocating of the greatest importance to her supporters or the person she represents? This is unclear. But, John McCain has certainly put these voters up for grabs by selecting a well-spoken and telegenic female running mate. And remember, George W. Bush is famous for not even knowing the names of key world leaders in 1999, but he later ‘outperformed’ Gore in the debates. I reckon he did not actually outperform Gore on substance; rather, he had already been framed as a ‘good guy’ and a man of the people. This contrasted well with Gore stylistically. Substance matters less than we think.

That was style; now for substance.

Winning the battleground states

The United States is a country, which has been fairly evenly divided over the last generation between Democrats and Republicans, especially in the last two Presidential elections. Because of the electoral college system, this even division has made a few key swing states exceedingly important in presidential politics. States like Colorado, Nevada, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida will decide this election. So, the question any national politician must ask is: how do I get enough votes in these states to beat my opponent?

The first key to the battleground states is stealing the limelight. After a very good showing by the Democrats in Denver, John McCain has taken the spotlight off of the Dems and Barack Obama, preventing a significant post-convention bounce.

Conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan says:

McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his co-pilot was the biggest gamble in presidential history. As of now, it is paying off, big-time.

The sensational selection in Dayton, Ohio, stepped all over the big story from Denver — Barack Obama’s powerful address to 85,000 cheering folks in Mile High Stadium, and 35 million nationally, a speech that vaulted him from a 2-point deficit early in the week to an 8-point margin. Barack had never before reached 49 percent against McCain.

As the Democrats were being rudely stepped on, however, Palin ignited an explosion of enthusiasm among conservatives, Evangelicals, traditional Catholics, gun owners and Right to Lifers not seen in decades.

By passing over his friends Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge, and picking Palin, McCain has given himself a fighting chance of winning the White House that, before Friday morning, seemed to be slipping away. Indeed, the bristling reaction on the left testifies to Democratic fears that the choice of Palin could indeed be a game-changer in 2008.
-Johnny’s Got A New Girl, Patrick Buchanan

The second key is to play to the battleground states way of seeing the world. There are three things to worry about here: social issues, money issues, and foreign policy. All of the battleground states tilt toward a moderate-conservative frame of social and foreign policy issues, while the western states like Nevada and Colorado are more progressive socially. In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made a calculation that he can bring out the base — galvanize more conservatives than the moderates and independents he loses. To be sure, this is a risky bet because in winning conservatives, he gets one vote (they are likely to stay at home and NOT vote for Obama), while in losing an independent he likely loses two votes (he loses their vote and Obama would gain a vote). However, if you remember the Kentucky Democratic primary, many of those voters would never vote for Obama, but would be willing to vote for a conservative woman. In states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, personality, race and Palin’s gender may matter more than the issues.

The third key is to control the agenda. McCain was easily seen as another George W. Bush in disguise, something sure to lose him the election. The Economist makes had a damning assessment of McCain here in last week’s issue:

Two months remain before the election, more than enough time for Mr McCain to allay some of these worries. He needs to spend less time reassuring evangelicals that he agrees with them about abortion and gay marriage, and more time having another look at his tax plans. The old John McCain attacked Mr Bush for his tax cuts, which he said were unaffordable. The new John McCain not only wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, but wants to add to them by virtually eliminating estate tax (something that would benefit a tiny number of very rich families, like his own). He also proposes to slash corporation tax. People on middle incomes would see little benefit. Independent analysts agree that Mr McCain’s plans would increase an already huge deficit.

Hawkish foreign policy, irresponsible tax cuts, more talk about religion and abortion: all this sounds too much like Bush Three, the label the Democrats are trying to hang around the Republican’s neck. We preferred McCain One.
-The Economist

By stirring things up with the media frenzy over his VP pick and satisfying the conservatives in the Republican party, McCain has time to himself move to the center and pick up support amongst independents. The Obama campaign has become distracted by attacking Sarah Palin. They could end up looking petty and mean-spirited Moreover, they are focusing on the wrong target
and risk losing if they continue to do so.

Downsides to Palin

There are many downsides to this risky choice by McCain. However, I am going to gloss over these fairly quickly as this is meant to be a provocative pro-Palin story.

• The Palin pick highlights McCain age instead of detracting from it. After all, had he picked Mitt Romney, most people would have felt fairly comfortable that the Vice President was up to the task, if he were to die in office, even if they did not like Romney. The same cannot be said with Palin.
• Palin was obviously not vetted well. There are a number of stories coming out that demonstrate that McCain made his selection in haste. This says more about McCain’s style of decision-making than Palin. She could be great. But, McCain’s rush decision cannot leave one feeling he is a thorough and thoughtful individual. And she could be Thomas Eagleton in drag.

Conclusion
Democrats are calling Sarah Palin the next Tom Eagleton. Call McCain’s decision risky, cynical, or reckless — call it whatever you want. The fact remains that there are many positives to his pick of Sarah Palin — it could send him straight to the White House. This is something the Democrats would be advised to keep in mind if they want to beat McCain in November.

Related posts:

• McCain chooses Palin as his running mate
• John McCain has poor judgment, but Palin is working out quite well
• Palin exceeds expectations but still loses debate
• Get ready for Biden v. Palin tonight
• Obama leads McCain by 2 points

John McCain made a surprise choice in choosing Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, for his running mate. While this is a risky choice, it definitely balances the ticket.

Below is a snippet of the story at the Wall Street Journal. This will be an interesting election.

Sen. John McCain picked first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate Friday, adding a little-known but reform-minded woman to his ticket. At a rally in Dayton, Ohio, he said she has “strong principles, a fighting spirit and deep compassion,” and praised her record of fighting corruption.

“She’s exactly what this country needs to help me fight …the same old Washington politics of me first and country second,” he told the raucus crowd.

Gov. Palin thus became the first woman named to a spot on a Republican ticket. “I am honored,” she said as she stood by a beaming Gov. McCain in her first few seconds in the national spotlight.

The move is the most dramatic in a series of efforts to appeal to Hillary Clinton supporters still disappointed that she didn’t capture the Democratic nomination. Gov. Palin also reinforces Sen. McCain’s reformer image. She took on her state’s political establishment that had been rocked by an FBI corruption investigation.

It’s an untraditional pick, given that reliably Republican Alaska has never been a battleground state in the past, though Barack Obama has tried to put it into play. She’s much less well known that other candidates who were believed to be on Sen. McCain’s short list.

“She’s not from these parts and she’s not from Washington but when you get to know her you’re going to be as impressed as I am,” he said.

The pick was not problem free, though. Democrats immediately pounced on her thin resume, which runs the risk of undercutting a central attack by Sen. McCain against Sen. Obama: That he isn’t ready to serve as president. The ability of Sen. McCain’s vice president to step into the top job is seen as particularly important given his age: He turns 72 today and would be the oldest person ever to enter the White House.

Sources
Sarah Palin, Wikipedia
McCain Taps Gov. Sarah Palin As Presidential Running Mate, WSJ

Related posts:

• Quote of the day: John McCain
• Obama leads McCain by 2 points
• John McCain has poor judgment, but Palin is working out quite well
• Spam E-mail on John McCain’s running mate
• Get ready for Biden v. Palin tonight