Palin: Remind you of FEMA or DOJ?
Posted: Monday, September 15, 2008 9:10 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under:
Sarah Palin
Sunday's New York Times: “Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal. So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.”
More: “When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects. And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said. ‘You should be ashamed!’ Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. ‘Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!’”
And: “[A]n examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image. Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.”
"With a little help from Tina Fey doubling as Sarah Palin and from guest host Michael Phelps, 'Saturday Night Live' logged its best season premiere since 2001," Reuters reports. "It was also the most-watched 'SNL' for any date since December 17, 2002."
SNL's take on Sarah Palin/Clinton.
Here’s another potential headache for Palin: Will she support Ted Stevens? "Despite the exuberant sendoff, Alaska might not be done with her yet. The governor leaves behind several unresolved issues that could force her in coming weeks to renegotiate the tenuous political divorce from the state's Republican establishment that she has used to cast a ‘maverick’ silhouette as a vice-presidential candidate. ‘What she's saying on the national stage is not at all what she'd say in Alaska,’ said Ivan Moore, an Anchorage pollster unaffiliated with any state or national campaigns.”
“While Palin brags outside Alaska that she battled the state's ‘old politics-as-usual . . . big good-old-boys network,’ she will likely share a ballot in November with two of its charter members: Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young, erstwhile rivals both struggling in their bids for reelection due to related corruption scandals.”
“Palin has so far not said whether she would endorse - or even vote for - either of her fellow Republicans. A McCain campaign spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on the subject. When asked yesterday if he expected that Palin would back Stevens and Young, state party chairman Randy Ruedrich said only that ‘we've talked to the governor about the election. . . . We'll work with all kind of people and see what happens.’”
“While Palin's campaign rallies elsewhere in the country last week were festooned with placards promoting local Republican candidates, the walls were bare in Anchorage. Stevens and Young will hope nonetheless to be pulled up by her coattails, according to a longtime strategist for both who said that finding common cause with them in the interest of party loyalty would not damage Palin politically."
The Wall Street Journal finds that despite claims to the contrary, Palin as governor has asked for millions in federal earmarks. "Last week, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, hadn't sought earmarks or special-interest spending from Congress, presenting her as a fiscal conservative. But state records show Gov. Palin has asked U.S. taxpayers to fund $453 million in specific Alaska projects over the past two years."
