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Title: Mayor Palin: A Rough Record
Source:
TIME / CNN
URL Source: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1837918,00.html
Published: Sep 2, 2008
Author: By Nathan Thornburgh / Wasilla, Alaska
Post Date: 2008-09-03 08:12:39 by angle
Keywords: None
Views: 784
Comments: 38
John McCain was clear about why he picked half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. "I found someone with an outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies," he said in introducing her in Dayton, Ohio, on Friday. Palin was someone, he noted, "who reached across the aisle and asked Republicans, Democrats and independents to serve in government." It is a powerful reinforcement of McCain's own political brand: tough, reform-minded, willing to break with his own party for the right cause. And it's true that her high-profile crusade against corruption and complacency in her own state party over the past few years has made Palin the Frank Serpico of Alaska politics: she publicly ratted out her state party chairman; whupped the good old boys' network, as she likes to put it, in a gubernatorial primary; and fought a general election in which the scandal-stained state GOP didn't lift a finger on her behalf. She won only because she had the enthusiastic backing of independents and grass-roots activists. But in the first major race of her career — the 1996 campaign for mayor of her hometown, Wasilla — Palin was a far more conventional politician. In fact, according to some who were involved in that fight, Palin was a highly polarizing political figure who brought partisan politics and hot-button social issues like abortion and gun control into a mayoral race that had traditionally been contested like a friendly intramural contest among neighbors. In the early '90s, Wasilla was little more than half as big as it is today, and much more loosely confederated. The main issue then, says longtime resident Chas St. George, was public safety. "We needed a police department," he says. "So we set up a group to make it happen." That group — Watch on Wasilla — included a handful of the town's most influential figures: St. George; the town's mayor, John Stein; and Palin, who wasn't in elected office yet. Her father-in-law Jim Palin and his wife Faye were also in the group. Eventually, they started a police department, led by chief Irl Stambaugh. Kaylene Johnson, author of Sarah, a Palin biography published earlier this year, says one place where the power group met was a step-aerobics class that Stambaugh and Stein took along with Palin. That class signed the original petition for Palin's first political race, for city council in 1992, which she won. Four years later, she took on her former workout buddy in a race that quickly became contentious. In Stein's view, Palin's main transgression was injecting big-time politics into a small-town local race. "It was always a nonpartisan job," he says. "But with her, the state GOP came in and started affecting the race." While Palin often describes that race as having been a fight against the old boys' club, Stein says she made sure the campaign hinged on issues like gun owners' rights and her opposition to abortion (Stein is pro-choice). "It got to the extent that — I don't remember who it was now — but some national antiabortion outfit sent little pink cards to voters in Wasilla endorsing her," he says. Vicki Naegele was the managing editor of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the time. "[Stein] figured he was just going to run your average, friendly small-town race," she recalls, "but it turned into something much different than that." Naegele held the same conservative Christian beliefs as Palin but didn't think they had any place in local politics. "I just thought, That's ridiculous, she should concentrate on roads, not abortion," says Naegele. St. George worked on Stein's campaign at the time, and while he says he has no reason to dispute Stein's recollection of events, he doesn't remember Palin's conduct being beyond the pale. "Our tax coffers were starting to grow," he says. "John was for expanding services, and Sarah wasn't. That's what the race was about." One thing all sides agree on is that the valley was in flux. The old libertarian pioneer ethos was giving way to a rising Christian conservatism. By shrewdly invoking issues that mattered to the ascendant majority, Palin won the mayor's race. But while she may have been a new face, says Naegele, she was no maverick — not yet. "The state party gave her the mechanism to get into that office," says Naegele. "As soon as she was confident enough to brush them off, she did. But she wasn't an outsider to start with. She very much had to kowtow to them." Governing was no less contentious than campaigning, at least to begin with. Palin ended up dismissing almost all the city department heads who had been loyal to Stein, including a few who had been instrumental in getting her into politics to begin with. Some saw it as a betrayal. Stambaugh, the police chief and a member of Palin's step-aerobics class, filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination, alleging that Palin terminated him in part at the behest of the National Rifle Association, because he had opposed a concealed-gun law that the NRA supported. He eventually lost the suit. The animosity spawned some talk of a recall attempt, but eventually Palin's opponents in the city council opted for a more conciliatory route. At some point in those fractious first days, Palin told the department heads they needed her permission to talk to reporters. "She put a gag order on those people, something that you'd expect to find in the big city, not here," says Naegele. "She flew in there like a big-city gal, which she's not. It was a strange time, and [the [ITALIC "Frontiersman"]] came out very harshly against her." 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." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor. St. George, however, points out that Palin couldn't have seen everything through an Evangelical lens. She did, he says, notably resist calls to restrict operating hours for the bars in town. And even if faith did play an unusually large role in her decision-making as mayor, it may have only reflected the continued rise of Evangelicalism in the valley, a growth that continues to this day. "We like to call this the Bible Belt of Alaska," says Cheryl Metiva, head of the local chamber of commerce. Churches proliferate in Wasilla today, and among the largest and most influential is the Wasilla Bible Church, where the Palins worship. At the 11:15 a.m. Sunday service, hundreds sit in folding chairs, listening to a 20-minute sermon about the Book of Malachi and singing along to alt-rock praise songs. The only sign of culture warring in the whole production is an insert in the day's program advertising an upcoming Focus on the Family conference on homosexuality in Anchorage called Love Won Out. The group promises to teach attendees how to "respond to misinformation in our culture" and help them "overcome" homosexuality. When Palin, who went on to win re-election by a landslide, was forced out of the Mayor's office by term limits in 2002, her husband Todd's stepmother Faye Palin ran for mayor. She did not, however, get Sarah Palin's endorsement. A couple of people told me that they thought abortion was the reason for Palin not supporting her family member — Faye, they say, is pro-choice, not to mention a Democrat. A former city council member recalls that it was a heated race, mainly because of right-to-life issues: "People were writing BABYKILLER on Faye's campaign signs just a few days before the election." Faye Palin lost the race to the candidate that Sarah backed, Dianne Keller, who is still mayor of Wasilla. (Over the weekend, Faye Palin told the New York Daily News that she liked listening to Barack Obama speak and that she wasn't sure who she would vote for in November.) By the time Sarah Palin was entering state politics, the hottest issue in Alaska wasn't gay marriage or even abortion. It was corruption and cronyism. Andrew Halcro, a noted Palin critic who ran against her as an independent in the governor's race, says she knew instinctively that the issues were changing. Plus, he says, her opponents, such as incumbent governor Frank Murkowski, whom she defeated in the primary, were just as hard-right on abortion and guns as she was. She needed a new political identity to make it to the next level, so ethics reform became her calling card. "She's a very savvy politician," says Halcro. "So wedge issues were not part of the portfolio." "If anything," he says, "she got tired of answering questions about them." Halcro recalls one debate in October 2006 in which, after repeated questions about her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape or incest, she looked at the moderator with exasperation and asked if they were going to talk about anything besides abortion. It was detracting from her new message: cleaning up the capitol. Nor has Palin made social issues the cornerstone of her governorship. When a parental consent law was struck down by Alaska's highest court in 2007, Palin called the decision "outrageous" but refused calls from conservatives to remedy the defeat by introducing antiabortion legislation in a session that was supposed to be about drilling rights. Wearing her faith quietly fits more with Palin's personality, says St. George. "In all the years I've known Sarah and her parents, we never talked about right-to-life or any of that," he says. "She doesn't let those issues get in the way of getting things done for the community." In the end, her political journey from banner-waving GOP social conservative to maverick reformer may simply be about good timing. It's what former journalist Bill McAllister, who now works for Palin's press staff, used to call "Sarah-dipity" — that uncanny gift of knowing exactly what voters are looking for at a particular moment. And, of course, the political will to give them what they want.
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#1. To: All (#0)
Well, she's a gem./s
I guess her constituents loved her.
I'm for banning Heather Has Two Mommies from grade school libraries. Some things are inappropriate for kids.
I support the constitution.
Banning a sick book in elementry school if that is what the community wants doesn't violate the constitution. The person can still publish the book and sell it. There is no requirement in the constitution for the government to carry every book in a library.
Would you go before George Washington and demand that "Heather Has Two Mommies" be placed in the Library of Congress?? I'd be ashamed of myself for even thinking of displaying such arrogance on top of ignorance before the Father of Our Nation. Our Constitution was meant for a moral country, and that doesn't mean "anything goes". Some topics are judged to be within the realm of moral depravity. You do know what that term means, don't you???
Elementary school is not the same as the library. And neither should be dictated by the mayor.
Lighten up. Freedom of speech is not at the discretion of the mayor.
When you have to include cults who felt Jesus and Satan were brothers who had a falling out, and that God was once like a man before becoming God, and that Mormons who do as they should can become gods too, you lose credibility... Not to mention believing that Jesus will be reborn in Independence Missouri, and that American Indians are one of the lost tribes of Israel. From another thread. Just the same as I don't want these types dicating what's in the library. Do you?
I agree that crap like "Heather Has Two Mommies" shouldn't be part of any school curriculum or crammed down kids' throats. However, religious fanatics won't stop at that. Many of them would be happy to ban any and every book with sexual content or critical of religious fundamentalism. If tolerating the existence of "Heather Has Two Mommies" is the price we have to pay to also have James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence in our libraries or Copernicus in our science classes, so be it.
Hold on there, I think you're reaching back to the Grand Inquisition there. I try to look at issues through the eyes of the Founding Fathers, and they wouldn't have ANY qualms about differentiating between Copernicus and "Heather Has Two Mommies". Remember, they were enlightened men smarter than most of us alive today: they knew multiple languages and studied everything from the sciences to Tacitus. They didn't debase themselves or give license to the masses to behave like boors, they expected Americans to be the BEST in the world at everything they did, including morals.
And in their enlightenment, they included freedom of speech. Not only what you want to hear or deem acceptable.
Benjamin Franklin was known for bawdy humor and off-color jokes. He was also an agnostic (as was Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine). I'm sure if they were around today, the Christian Coalition would try to censor them too.
Thomas Paine died in poverty, alone, unloved in Rye(IIRC), NY, and reportedly the local priest refused to perform any services for him. His letter to Washington challenging the restoration of many of the old Tory merchants of NYC, along with the elevation of former Royalists, and the elevation of Alexander Hamilton's "big money" policies had alienated him from the Revolution some would say he helped keep together during the dark days of Valley Forge and the long retreat of Washington.
The mayor represents the people. Seems like the correct person. Local level.
I guess the President decides what you can read.
Don't be stupid. I said the government doesn't have to carry every book in the library. If the community finds it offensive it should be removed. Freaks are still free to try and sell their book in the free market place. You have a warped sense of the constitution. Why would you want kids to read perverted books anyway. That is kind of weird.
Stupid? You just said you think the mayor should decide what one reads. By extension, why not the president?
The problem is who picks the 'bad' books and why. I look at books targeted over the years because of political considerations like Catcher in the Rye and others that are excellent, but 'offend' some particular group. If you don't want to read the book, don't check it out. Don't make it harder for others to read what they want to read. This aspect of her story shows her to be more intolerant and dogmatic then I want to see elected to anything. I would never support this woman for anything.
The mayor should keep his or her nose out of the issue of censorship. Especially if they have a religious agenda like this one.
I guess the librarian better stock up on the fundamentalist's favorites or else.
Because there are federal functions and state functions. It is not the purpose of the federal govt. If people are pressuring the mayor because there is a perverted book, it is the mayors job to look at it and decide. If the people disagree they can throw her out. There is no requirement for the government to carry certain books in the library. What part of that don't you understand?
I have not problem with the "Catcher and the Rye". I have never read it. Saw the end of the movie once. It looked like it would be a good one. There are community standards. The government isn't required to carry someones book. Why should tax payers be forced to buy a book that most object to? According to your position it would seem the library should be required to allow porn to be viewed in the library. I don't favor banning books for sale at private institutions. But the government doesn't have to subsidize perversion.
That book didn't seem to bother the faggot "humanities" professors at Southern Methodist University who loved teaching it.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition "Corporation: An entity created for the legal protection of its human parasites, whose sole purpose is profit and self-perpetuation." © IndieTx You'd only need one shelf in that library - with just enough room for the "Left Behind" series.
I will agree with you that there could be errors. But that is what elections are for. If someone disagrees with it they are free to throw her out of office. But with 80 percent approval ratings it seems that the citizens approve of her. I mean what other politician has 80 percent approval?
Your full of it. I personally think Left Behind could lead many christians to believe things that aren't in the Bible.
Point is, I think "Left Behind" is crap just like "Heather has two Mommies" is crap. I wouldn't waste my time with either. That doesn't mean that I think that either should be banned, not by a Mayor, not by a President, not by act of Congress. Anyone with the power to ban those books would also have the power to ban books that I might want to read.
So should a library be required to carry "two mommies"? No one is talking about banning books. Just talking about a library not carrying perverted books. I suppose the library should carry playgirl too for elementry kids?
That's fine, but they're not even in the same ballpark fwiw. Polar opposites in fact. One offers hope and the other undermines civilization. BTW, banning is for wussies!!
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Anyone not grounded in the Bible will fall for all kinds of crapola. Even those grounded in the Word are far from perfect in most cases.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Blech!
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
You do, huh?
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Having a bunch of loons running around thinking that they might be raptured away tomorrow also undermines civilization.
How do you know the Word doesn't speak to a great catching away of believers before God pours out His wrath on the planet?
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Didn't Bush before he was found out?
Your point?
OK, but America is a Hamiltonian nation. The principles Hamilton put into effect,in two words, Big Money, have essentially been the economic universe of America, despite some attempts by say, William Jennings Bryan, to offer an alternative. The romantic, idealistic, pastoral vision of America defined by Jefferson et al was put aside as soon as the Revolution was over, and has remained more or less the subject of scribes. The dynamic of this conflict is as old as the Republic.
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." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
#2. To: angle (#0)
When Palin, who went on to win re-election by a landslide,
#3. To: angle (#1)
Well, she's a gem./s
#4. To: Old Friend (#3)
I'm for banning
#5. To: angle (#4)
I support the constitution.
#6. To: angle (#4)
(Edited)
-Schweizerische Schutzenseitunt (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#7. To: Old Friend (#5)
Banning a sick book in elementry school
#8. To: X-15 (#6)
#9. To: X-15 (#6)
#10. To: X-15 (#6)
(Edited)
#11. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#10)
-Schweizerische Schutzenseitunt (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#12. To: X-15 (#11)
they were enlightened men
#13. To: angle (#12)
(Edited)
#14. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#13)
(Edited)
#15. To: angle (#7)
And neither should be dictated by the mayor.
#16. To: Old Friend (#15)
#17. To: angle (#16)
#18. To: Old Friend (#17)
#19. To: Old Friend (#17)
"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power -- he's free again. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
#20. To: angle (#18)
"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power -- he's free again. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
#21. To: Ferret Mike (#20)
#22. To: angle (#18)
Stupid? You just said you think the mayor should decide what one reads. By extension, why not the president?
#23. To: Ferret Mike (#19)
The problem is who picks the 'bad' books and why. I look at books targeted over the years because of political considerations like Catcher in the Rye and others that are excellent, but 'offend' some particular group.
#24. To: Old Friend (#23)
"There is no 'legitimate' Corporation by virtue of it's very legal definition and purpose."
-- IndieTx
#25. To: angle (#21)
I guess the librarian better stock up on the fundamentalist's favorites or else.
#26. To: Ferret Mike (#19)
The problem is who picks the 'bad' books and why. I look at books targeted over the years because of political considerations like Catcher in the Rye and others that are excellent, but 'offend' some particular group.
#27. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#25)
You'd only need one shelf in that library - with just enough room for the "Left Behind" series.
#28. To: Old Friend (#27)
#29. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#28)
#30. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#28)
Point is, I think "Left Behind" is crap just like "Heather has two Mommies" is crap. I wouldn't waste my time with either.
#31. To: Old Friend (#27)
I personally think Left Behind could lead many christians to believe things that aren't in the Bible.
#32. To: swarthyguy (#14)
Tories, A. Hamilton and Royalty
#33. To: angle (#4)
I support the constitution.
#34. To: Rotara (#30)
One offers hope and the other undermines civilization.
#35. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#34)
Having a bunch of loons running around thinking that they might be raptured away tomorrow also undermines civilization.
#36. To: Old Friend (#26)
I mean what other politician has 80 percent approval?
#37. To: Rotara (#33)
#38. To: Rotara (#32)
Blech!
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