i've bolded some bits below, but the point of the Op Ed is to show that: When it comes to the nuts and bolts of governing, Palin is one of the most substantive politicians to arrive on the scene in quite some time. Discuss. http://www.appeal-democrat.com/articles/palin-89119-wasilla-carney.html [rquoter]Op-Ed: Palin in Wasilla: Resistance to insider assimilation November 29, 2009 12:01:00 AM By Dan Calabrese You can't help but notice that just about everyone who is part of the political establishment detests Sarah Palin. And you can't help but notice that Palin couldn't care less. Early in the second chapter of "Going Rogue," a chapter titled "Kitchen-Table Politics," you learn everything you need to know to understand why. This is the way Palin has been wired for a very long time. During her two terms on the Wasilla City Council, followed by two terms as the city's mayor, she consistently demonstrated a refreshing immunity to the insider mentality that tends to afflict people who serve in government at any level. Recruited to run for the council in 1992 by local power broker Nick Carney, Palin was seen as an attractive face who would support the usual way of doing business in Wasilla. She wasn't. In one of the first tests of her independence, Palin opposed a proposal touted by Carney, her political patron, to force residents to pay for neighborhood trash pickup rather than hauling their garbage to the dump themselves, as most did, and as Palin says she still does. Why was this so important to Carney? Because he owned the local garbage truck company. If you've never had much exposure to local politics — and this is largely true anywhere you go — it's a pretty big deal for a young, inexperienced politician (especially a woman) to so blatantly go against the person who recruited you into politics and supported you in your first campaign. You come under tremendous pressure to fall into line. Most cave, right then and there, long before they ever sniff politics at a higher level. Palin didn't. During her terms on the council, she consistently opposed heavy-handed community planning initiatives and burdensome taxes. But she was not anti-government, as she explains: As a council member, I focused on what I believed to be the key functions of government: infrastructure development, fiscal responsibility and simply being on the side of the people. She continued this emphasis after being elected mayor in 1998, supporting the building of roads and sewers, which helped to attract stores like Walmart and Fred Meyer to Wasilla for the first time. She also spurred the paving of the city's airport runway. You read that right: Wasilla's airport had a gravel runway before Palin worked to get it paved. It was as Wasilla's mayor that she encountered the kind of insider resistance to responsive government that would also await her later in Juneau. After she defeated the incumbent mayor, Palin recalls assembling her cabinet for the first time. These were holdovers from the previous mayor. As they sat with their arms folded, glaring at her, she received little enthusiasm as she talked about reviewing budgets and looking for places to cut in order to redirect money to building roads and sewers. The chief of police flat-out refused to even look for budget savings, beginning a chilly relationship that ultimately resulted in Palin firing him and — get this — being sued by him for sex discrimination. (It took three years, but Palin was vindicated — another harbinger of things to come.) Among Palin-haters, one of the most popular canards is that she is an airhead, and clearly not capable of dealing with the intricacies of government. As this chapter demonstrates, nothing could be further from the truth. Palin not only has a keen grasp of the details of governing and budgeting, she also understands the political difficulties inherent in making government responsive. Many of her antagonists at the national level scoffed at the notion that her experience in Wasilla was of any value. Quite the contrary, local government is where a public official's decisions have the most direct impact on the electorate. It's where you really have to understand the ins and outs of what you're doing. No voting for bills without reading them first. As I've said many times before, and will say again now, I have no idea if Palin ever wants to run for president, and it is not my intention here to either tout her for president or argue for (or against) her qualifications. But it has become widely accepted conventional wisdom that Palin is nothing more than a populist sloganeer who has no serious grasp of governing substance. Even a fair number of conservative commentators have bought into this notion, and are warning against the support of Palin as the mere embrace of empty style over substance. Bull****. When it comes to the nuts and bolts of governing, Palin is one of the most substantive politicians to arrive on the scene in quite some time. And when it comes to having the intestinal fortitude necessary keep the interests of the people at the top of the agenda, I can't think of a single person anywhere in politics who is Palin's equal. If you disagree with Palin's philosophy of governing because you are a political liberal, that's fine. But if you're an honest person, stop trying to pretend she's some sort of good-looking moron. The more you read about Palin's experience in governing, the more you understand why the national political establishments of both parties hope to smother her political career in its crib. She knows how to govern — better than most of them do, in fact. She just won't do it the way they do it, and that scares the crap out of them. Dan Calabrese is editor in chief of The North Star National syndicate.[/rquoter]
Cause she running for President in 2012 and the whole MAKE HISTORY thing Obama had going on will be working for her this time. Rocket River
earlier I made a pledge to myself to stop talking about her, but the mass delusion of her fans is surreal. I mean, did you really write an article about a woman's governing style who quit the job its fascinating
I wish we could stop with the "who cares" meme everytime Palin is mentioned. Maybe you don't care, but obviously a lot of people do (wrong or right.) You acting like she isn't relevant isn't going to diminish her stature one bit, and it doesn't make you look any cooler than you are already appear for posting in the D&D with the rest of us cool cats.
It isn't that she isn't "relevant," it is that she is completely wrong for higher office at this time. That may change someday, but Mayor of a small Alaskan town and then part of one term as Alaska's governor doesn't give her the kind of experience she would need to be President. Personally, I think that neither of the last two Presidents had the kind of experience I would have liked to have in the White House, but anyone who holds Palin up as ready for the highest office in the US is deluded.
That may be true. I am not a fan of hers at all and I pray that I get to see her in the GOP debates against some of the more intellectual candidates. I think watching her debate economics with Mitt Romney would be very satisfying. Watching her debate foreign policy with Ron Paul would be delicious. (I'm referring to intellectual disparities between the candidates, not actual agreement with policies) But, she is relevant and people do care. She is a player on the national level whether we like it or not. To dismiss it with "who cares" "why do we talk about Palin?" etc. is dumb.
Very true. She has following thanks to her rebel/rouge whatever appearence in addition to her being a not-unattractive female. Still, it just baffles me why people want her to represent them. Sarah Palin, President of the United States? Ugh, that sends a shiver down my spine...I'd be crying to get W back in the white house before I'd want backwoods bumkin in there.
Worth noting that for the record, basso's thread is, like all of his other threads: FREE REPUBLIC APPROVED http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2396562/posts
because people really have bought into the idea of common sense is better than intelligence and that most people have either or, and that she is a common sense person who can bygollygeez just git er dun
She let her state hang out to dry, leaving in the middle of her term as governor to go on a book tour and make money. Hardly the act of a person interested in governing. She's only interested in larding her pocketbook and her ego. Palin, if she is anything, is perverse.
This is why Palin is mocked so hard - because some people are delusional to actually think she was good in gov't. The best thing for Alaska was when this woman quit. Anyone with any level of objectiveness understands this.
so the primary source for this op-ed is palin's own book, which many have already pointed out is full of inaccuracies and flat-out lies? you go basso! palin/prejean 2012!
Serial Quitter... Sarah Palin Quits Turkey Trot 5K Race In Kennewick, Washington Sarah Palin dropped out of a 5k race on Thanksgiving Day in Kennewick, Wash. The former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor quit the race because she wanted to avoid the crowds that were waiting for her at the end, according to The Tri-Cities Herald. Palin was 1 of about 3,000 participants. The paper reported that her presence drew a "mass of onlookers." Palin announced that she would be running the race on Twitter. The former Republican vice-presidential candidate visited nearby Richland, Wash., to spend the holiday with relatives. She said it's good to be back in the Tri-Cities to reconnect with "the roots." Her grandparents, Clem and Helen Sheeran, came to Richland in 1943. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/28/sarah-palin-quits-turkey_n_372818.html
Both. McCain was not the kind of experience I thought the country needed and his running mate was so woefully unqualified that there is no way I would have voted to put her one 70 plus year old man's heartbeat away from the highest office in the land. Obama had enough experience to overcome McCain and Palin easily.
