Palin: Her Stand on Issues

Over at the Huffington Post, Seth Colter Walls has a look at where Palin stands on a variety of issues.

How To Understand Sarah Palin: The Issues, Not Biography

September 8, 2008 01:01 PM


Who is Sarah Palin?

The question itself is open-ended to such a degree that it primes the reader for a complex answer. But what if the explanation turned out to be less complicated than advertised? And is achieved by, say, looking at a record of statements and political behavior rather than psychoanalyzing the subject?

The initial coverage of the Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee favored the latter: think the circumstances of her son Trig's birth, or her daughter Bristol's pregnancy. But what do these (admittedly gripping) personal yarns tell us about the candidate as a political creature? That she's militantly pro-life? A defender of the family? Well, not quite. In her short term as governor, Newsweek has reported that Palin cut funds for at-risk young mothers and sometimes angered abortion foes by refusing to allow full debates on hot anti-abortion bills.

After selling herself as an advocate in line with various issue groups, Palin has been more than comfortable declaring her independence at politically expedient moments. In this way, she shares a common trait with many ambitious politicians. As independent Alaskan pollster Ivan Moore told the Huffington Post right after Palin was announced as McCain's running mate, Palin in action has not always matched the ideological campaigner. "People were worried [about her conservatism]," Moore said, "but it didn't pan out in the sense that after she took office...she has governed pragmatically." That pragmatism also extends to her political self-definition. Though Palin now derides the "Bridge to Nowhere" federal project that John McCain often cites as bad government in action, she had previously trumpted its virtues as a candidate on the road to statewide notoriety.

But a pragmatic "common politician" is not the role McCain had in mind when picking Palin. Instead, he sought a "maverick" who could dazzle the press with the trappings of an unlikely biography while inspiring the base by signing the old favorites. And though GOP operatives publicly lament the media's exhaustive coverage of the Alaska Republican's personal life, there's reason to believe the guarantee of such breathless reporting was part of the reason Palin was selected. (As David Brooks noted on a Sunday chat show, the Palin "sizzle" is what's keeping McCain's campaign from bottoming out into Dole-style torpor.)

So, as the tabloid press promotes the intrigue of motherhood, pregnancy and rumored infidelity -- and while the navel-gazing mainstream media covers its own role in the mix -- Palin is perfecting her projection of a more orthodox ideological line to conservatives than McCain can manage. Though she recently offered praise for portions of Barack Obama's energy plan and was decidedly more extreme than John McCain on environmental issues, she now toes the line of her party much more explicitly. On the issue of Iraq, for example, she has been a quick study of the McCain policy manual. And though she said in 2006 that her busy schedule as governor precluded her from forming an opinion on the surge or the Iraq war at all, in her convention speech, she assumed enough policy mastery to decry Obama's forfeiture of victory there.

With an eye to the issues, then, here is a brief scorecard of where Palin stands:

On Energy: Drill here, drill now. But has also has supported a windfall profits tax for oil companies, contra conservative free-market wisdom. (The policy helps grease the skids in her home state, where the tax allowed Palin to add another $1,200 to the money every Alaskan receives from the state's Permanent Dividend for residents.) In fact, her reputation for "taking on" the oil companies actually extends from her implementation at the state level of a policy that John McCain himself opposes on the national stage.

On Iraq: In 2006, Palin said, "I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe." Earlier this year, she said she hoped the Iraq war was "a task that is from God."

On Taxes: Echoes McCain campaign's misleading mantra that Obama will broadly raise Americans' taxes. But in addition to supporting a windfall profits tax for oil companies herself, Palin also raised a sales tax as the mayor of Wasilla. The revenues were dedicated to a new sports facility that plunged the town into long-term debt. Meanwhile, the land deal for the complex is still being litigated in court.

On Abortion: Publicly opposed in all instances, save for the life of the mother. No exceptions for rape (even if it were her own daughter), incest or the health of the woman -- including those who are trapped in a cycle of domestic violence. However, Palin has also passed up opportunities as governor to help her allies push for a partial-birth abortion ban.

On Education: A claim that Palin gutted special education funding by 62 percent in her first year as governor, spread mostly on liberal blogs, is untrue. (The flawed analysis stems from a misreading of budget lines.) However, in a 2006 debate during her race for governor, Palin said her preference would be to have creationism taught alongside evolution in public schools. "Teach both," Palin said during the live debate, according to the Anchorage Daily News. "You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both." In a follow-up interview, though, Palin appeared to back off of that statement. According to the paper, Palin said "she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum."

The former Wasilla PTA board member also courted controversy as mayor by asking the town's librarian about banning certain books. While the conversation was a non-starter with the librarian, and never got down to specifics, the revelation has nevertheless stirred concern among some education professionals.

Palin also answered a questionnaire while running for governor by saying she supports "abstinence-only" sex education.

On Earmarks/Lobbyist Influence: Palin identifies herself as an enemy of special interests. But, as noted above, that reputation stems from taxing big oil in a state where the politics of energy are unusually distinct and parochial. In other arenas, Palin has not opposed requesting earmarks, or objected to the work of lobbyists. As mayor of Wasilla, she hired a firm with connections to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff that secured $27 million in projects for the town's 6,700 residents.

On Environment: Denies climate-change is man-made. Supports drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. Supports aerial wolf hunting, and fought the Bush administration's measures to protect polar bears.

For more issues, see "The Sarah Palin Digest" over at Think Progress. Overall, the legislative portrait of Palin shows a hard-right conservative whose unorthodox positions appear either influenced by the uniqueness of the state she governs, or political expediency. But with the candidate presently sequestered from media scrutiny and unable to explain her political philosophy with greater precision, it is the mystery of her biography that entices many. As CNN's entertainment reporter opined to Howard Kurtz on his Sunday show: "It's something that is ripped from the script of a 'Desperate Housewives' plot line. And there you have it. Of course the tabloids are going to go hog wild over this story. And I expect more to come. They are not going to let this go at all." (Another conservative commentator chimed in as well, telling Kurtz that "many members of the media were blindsided by this choice.... so they said, what do we go with? Well, we know she's a mom, so let's ask questions about that.")

Still, there's no guarantee that the soft-focus lighting of network television interviews will expose the fine grain detail of Palin's record, either. At this point in the race, biography may have the lead over policy, according to none other than McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who told the Washington Post "this election is not about issues."

If that prediction turns out to be true, it won't have been for a lack of them.

Read the original HERE.

Palin: The Kilkenny email from Wasilla

Crosscut, an online news resource based in Seattle, has reprinted an email about Sarah Palin by Anne Kilkenny, which has been widely circulated on the Internet in recent days. Kilkenny has known and interacted with Palin for years, and was one of the residents of Wasilla who supported the librarian Palin tried to have fired after she refused to ban books from the library. Kilkenny appears to try being evenhanded and seems to give Palin credit where credit is due, but the overall picture is hardly flattering.

About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla
A suburban Anchorage homemaker and activist — who once did battle with the Alaska governor when Palin was mayor — recounts what she knows of Palin's history.

By Anne Kilkenny

Posted on September 2, 2008.

Editor's note: The writer is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska. Late last week, Anne Kilkenny penned an e-mail for her friends about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom she personally knows, that has since circulated across comment forums and blogs nationwide. Here is her e-mail in its entirety, posted with her permission.

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 for vice president 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 lifestyle 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 two 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 six years as mayor, she increased general government expenditures by more than 33 percent. During those same six years, the amount of taxes collected by the city increased by 38 percent. 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 benefitted large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenue 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 more than $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. $1 million for a park. $15 million-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex, which she rushed through, on a piece of property that the city didn't even have clear title to. That was still in litigation seven years 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 $5.5 million for road projects that could have been done in five to seven years 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 Sarah 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 revenue: Spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected city librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the city librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the city and as governor, she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal — loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop.

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 two 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-Gov. Frank Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job, which paid $122,400 a year, 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 Sen. Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects — which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance — but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla, there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either protected salmon streams from pollution from mines or tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on whom you listen to). She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Department of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as a 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 are 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 unconsitutional).
* 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 and transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
* Has a developed philosophy of public policy: No.
* "A Greenie": No. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
* Fiscal conservative: Not by my definition!
* Pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
* Pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
* Pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.
* Pro-labor/pro-union: No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

Why am I writing this?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name, you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "bad things happen when good people stay silent." Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the city librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

Caveats: I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending and taxation two 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-1990s.

Anne Kilkenny is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska.
© 2008 Crosscut LLC. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.crosscut.com/2008-election/17341/

Read the original HERE.

Religion: Her goal to follow God's will

New York Times reporters Kirk Johnson and Kim Severson put together a longish piece on Gov. Palin's religious background. Certainly not out of bounds, since she makes a direct appeal to religious conservatives (and Sen. Obama's religious background has been rather thoroughly raked over the coals).

September 6, 2008

In Palin’s Life and Politics,
Goal to Follow God’s Will

By KIRK JOHNSON and KIM SEVERSON
The New York Times

WASILLA, Alaska — Shortly after taking office as governor in 2006, Sarah Palin sent an e-mail message to Paul E. Riley, her former pastor in the Assembly of God Church, which her family began attending when she was a youth. She needed spiritual advice in how to do her new job, said Mr. Riley, who is 78 and retired from the church.

“She asked for a biblical example of people who were great leaders and what was the secret of their leadership,” Mr. Riley said.

He wrote back that she should read again from the Old Testament the story of Esther, a beauty queen who became a real one, gaining the king’s ear to avert the slaughter of the Jews and vanquish their enemies. When Esther is called to serve, God grants her a strength she never knew she had.

Mr. Riley said he thought Ms. Palin had lived out the advice as governor, and would now do so again as the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee.

“God has given her the opportunity to serve,” he said. “And God has given her the strength to carry out her goals.”

Ms. Palin’s religious life — what she believes and how her beliefs intersect or not with her life in public office in Alaska — has become a topic of intense interest and scrutiny across the political spectrum as she has risen from relative obscurity to become Senator John McCain’s running mate.

Interviews with the two pastors she has been most closely associated with here in her hometown — she now attends the Wasilla Bible Church, though she keeps in touch with Mr. Riley and recently spoke at an event at his former church — and with friends and acquaintances who have worshipped with her point to a firm conclusion: her foundation and source of guidance is the Bible, and with it has come a conviction to be God’s servant.

“Just be amazed at the umbrella of this church here, where God is going to send you from this church,” Ms. Palin told the gathering in June of young graduates of a ministry program at the Assembly of God Church, a video of which has been posted on YouTube.

“Believe me,” she said, “I know what I am saying — where God has sent me, from underneath the umbrella of this church, throughout the state.”

Janet Kincaid, who has known Ms. Palin for about 15 years and worked with her on some Wasilla town boards and commissions when Ms. Palin was mayor here, said Ms. Palin’s spiritual path, from the Assembly of God to Wasilla Bible, has had a consistent theme.

“The churches that Sarah has attended all believe in a literal translation of the Bible,” Ms. Kincaid said. “Her principal ethical and moral beliefs stem from this.”

Prayer, and belief in its power, is another constant theme, Ms. Kincaid said, in what she has witnessed in Ms. Palin. “Her beliefs are firm in the power of prayer — let’s put it that way,” she said.

Maria Comella, a spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign, said Ms. Palin had been baptized Roman Catholic as an infant, but declined to comment further.

“We’re not going to get into discussing her religion,” she said.

In the address at the Assembly of God Church here, Ms. Palin’s ease in talking about the intersection of faith and public life was clear. Among other things, she encouraged the group of young church leaders to pray that “God’s will” be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state, and suggested her work as governor would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.”

She also told the group that her eldest child, Track, would soon be deployed by the Army to Iraq, and that they should pray “that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.”

Larry Kroon, who has been the presiding pastor at Wasilla Bible for the last 30 years, declined to describe Ms. Palin’s beliefs or the role she plays in the church, but suggested that she is more of a back-bencher than a leading light.

“Todd and Sarah come in as Todd and Sarah — they’re very discreet about it,” he said, referring to Ms. Palin’s husband.

One of the musical directors at the church, Adele Morgan, who has known Ms. Palin since the third grade, said the Palins moved to the nondenominational Wasilla Bible Church in 2002, in part because its ministry is less “extreme” than Pentecostal churches like the Assemblies of God, which practice speaking in tongues and miraculous healings.

“A lot of churches are about music and media and having a big profile,” Ms. Morgan said. “We are against that. That is why it is so attractive to politicians because they can just sit there and be safe.”

“We’ve gotten a lot of their people when the other churches get too extreme,” Ms. Morgan continued. However, she added, “If you lift your hands when we’re singing, we’re not going to shoot you down.”

Mr. Kroon (pronounced krone), a soft-spoken, bearded Alaska native, said he was convinced that the Bible is the Word of God, and that the task of believers is to ponder and analyze the book for meaning — including scrutiny, he said, for errors and mistranslations over the centuries that may have obscured the original intent.

It is that analysis, he believes, not anything he preaches, that makes most people in his church socially conservative, he said.

“I trust my people can go out with that and they can deal with an issue such as abortion — any issue out there — whether it’s in the public arena, or in the hospital room with their relative dying of cancer, because they will be equipped with a biblical perspective that will enable them to react in that situation,” said Mr. Kroon, who described himself as “pro-life.”

“Our congregation would tend to be conservative, and it’s not because I’ve told them to be,” he said.

Some Jewish groups have raised concerns since the announcement of Ms. Palin’s selection to the Republican ticket that discussions in the Wasilla Bible Church might go beyond conservatism. Last month, a leader in the group Jews for Jesus, which advocates converting Jews to Christianity — but which has been accused by some Jews of anti-Semitism — spoke at the church. The speaker, David Brickner, spoke enthusiastically about the “miracle” of conversions in Israel by the group’s missionaries.

The church has also come under fire among some gay advocacy groups for promoting an upcoming Focus on the Family conference in Anchorage dealing with the so-called curing of homosexuality.

The Wasilla Bible Church, which draws 800 to 1,000 people for Sunday service, itself is discreet to the point of self-effacement. Only a single small sign on the gravel road leading up to the property declares the name. On the three-year-old building itself, which looks more like a warehouse than a cathedral, a large cross over the rear entrance is the only declaration of purpose.

People who know the church and its parishioners say that the mix of simplicity and quirkiness is common in Alaska, where many people have moved over the years and left their pasts and old church lives behind.

Homegrown churches like Wasilla — started in the early 1970s by a handful of families, including Ms. Morgan’s, during the construction boom in building the Trans-Alaska pipeline — have become singularly Alaskan. Mr. Kroon still remembers the days of a single room with a wood-burning stove that he would have to fire up before services.

Mr. Kroon said the Alaskan spirit of go-it-alone individuality gives the church a mix of joiners and resolute nonjoiners. The church offers full-immersion water baptism, which some people want and others do not.

“I have people who’ve been here since I got here, and they still say, ‘Don’t put me on the membership roll,’ ” he said. “There’s definitely a cultural element.”

Read the original story HERE.

Gov. Palin: Path paved with luck

A backgrounder on Gov. Sarah Palin by reporters from the Anchorage Daily News, a McClatchy newspaper.

Palin's path to the top paved with good luck

Sean Cockerham | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: September 02, 2008 09:23:44 PM

St. PAUL, Minn. — A charmed political career launched Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from small-town mayor to the Republican National Convention, where she's set to accept the nomination for vice president Wednesday night.

Call it luck, the hand of providence or perfect timing, but it has blessed Palin throughout her public life.

"There's no question that a sequence of opportunities has opened for her and everything fell beautifully in place," said Ivan Moore, an Anchorage pollster and political consultant. "That should not detract from the fact that she took perfect advantage of it."

She gained a reputation as an ethics reformer shortly before FBI raids on the state Capitol made corruption a huge issue for Alaska voters. Then high oil prices flooded the state government with money, saving her from having to make tough choices on taxes and budget cuts. More recently, the national mood turned to seeking change and fresh faces from outside Washington, and then John McCain discovered Palin. In short, she's enjoyed a sun-kissed political career.

"She's been in the right place at the right time," said state House speaker John Harris, a Republican from Valdez. "And she's taken advantage."

Like a local coffeehouse singer suddenly tapped to star at Madison Square Garden, Palin will take a stage Wednesday night that's far bigger than any she's ever faced.

Her career began in Wasilla, Alaska, population about 7,000, where she was the mayor in the late 1990s. The town was booming. Sales tax revenues poured in from big box stores, allowing Palin to gain a reputation as a fiscal conservative by cutting property taxes even as the town budget grew to include projects such as an ice rink complex.

Palin later leveled charges that the chairman of the Alaska Republican Party was doing party business on the state's dime. She also took a stand against the Republican state attorney general, who helped push a project for a company in which he had a business interest.

Those were risky moves for Palin at the time, said Gregg Erickson, the former publisher of an influential publication on state government who's watched Alaska politics for decades. Palin was an upstart challenging the state's political power structure. But when the FBI later discovered how bad the corruption was in Alaska politics, Palin already had established a reputation as a reformer.

Suddenly, there was no better position to have in Alaska politics than outsider.

"She was either incredibly lucky or incredibly prescient in that she turned out to be damn near the only Republican in the state who had stood up to corruption," Erickson said.

Next, Palin challenged incumbent Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2006. Others in the race had more experience, and Palin was a dark horse. But Murkowski was unpopular, seen by many as an old-style politician who angered the public with actions such as buying a state jet for his travel despite voter and legislative opposition. He proved to be the perfect foil for Palin's campaign.

"He'd hurt himself badly," said Harris, the Republican state House speaker. "That opened the door for somebody like Sarah Palin, who ran on a sort of reform ticket. The time was right and the public absorbed it."

Palin beat Murkowski five to one in the Republican primary on Aug. 22, 2006. Nine days later, the FBI raided the offices of state legislators, which positioned her perfectly for the general election campaign.

Fortune smiled again when Palin became the governor. Well-timed indictments and convictions of state legislators for taking bribes to help the oil industry boosted her key proposals. Those included a big tax hike on the oil companies and a natural gas pipeline plan that the companies fought.

Palin was also fortunate in avoiding the budget problems that her predecessors struggled with. Oil prices have skyrocketed during her term as governor, leaving the state government swimming in cash from oil taxes. That let her avoid the backlash from raising taxes or cutting services that had dogged previous governors.

The state was so flush that she could even hand out money, a $1,200 check to every Alaskan to help with energy prices.

Palin was also in the right place at the right time when presidential candidate McCain needed a social conservative who was also a reformer, someone who'd fire up Republicans but also keep his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, from monopolizing the theme of change.

That leads her to Wednesday night's stage.

Even a lucky streak can suffer a stumble; Palin felt forced to reveal on the eve of accepting the vice-presidential nomination that her unmarried teenage daughter is pregnant. Republican convention delegates rallied behind her overwhelmingly, however, saying it was a private family matter that Palin was handling well.

Despite that unwelcome development, the character of her career remains clear to Erickson and other Alaskan political analysts: Her rise to the national stage was paved with good fortune.

"But it is hard to separate luck from foresight," Erickson added.

(Cockerham reports for the Anchorage Daily News. Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News contributed to this article from Anchorage, Alaska.)

Read the original story HERE.

Gov. Palin: Interest in trooper's penalty

Governor Palin showed an intense interest in seeing her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired after a messy divorce.

Palin E-Mails Show Intense Interest in Trooper's Penalty

By James V. Grimaldi and Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, September 4, 2008; A27

EAGLE RIVER, Alaska, Sept. 3 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the running mate for GOP presidential candidate John McCain, wrote e-mails that harshly criticized Alaska state troopers for failing to fire her former brother-in-law and ridiculed an internal affairs investigation into his conduct.

The e-mails were shown to The Washington Post by a former public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, who was fired by Palin in July. Monegan has given copies of the e-mails to state ethics investigators to support his contention that he was dismissed for failing to fire Trooper Mike Wooten, who at the time was feuding with Palin's family.

"This trooper is still out on the street, in fact he's been promoted," said a Feb. 7, 2007, e-mail sent from Palin's personal Yahoo account and written to give Monegan permission to speak on a violent-crime bill before the state legislature.

"It was a joke, the whole year long 'investigation' of him," the e-mail said. "This is the same trooper who's out there today telling people the new administration is going to destroy the trooper organization, and that he'd 'never work for that b****', Palin'.)"

Asked about the e-mails, Palin's campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said that Palin was merely alerting officials to potential threats to her family and that there is no evidence that Palin ever ordered Wooten to be fired.

"Let's be clear, Governor Palin has done nothing wrong and is an open book in this process. Mr. Monegan even stated himself that no one ever told him to fire anyone, period," Comella said later in a statement. "The Governor was rightly expressing concern about Mr. Wooten."

Palin is under investigation by a bipartisan state legislative body that was authorized last month to look into whether Palin pressured Monegan to force Wooten from the state police force and whether his failure to do so led to his dismissal.

Palin had promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but this week moved to change the jurisdiction of the case to the state personnel board, which Palin appoints. Her attorney, Thomas V. Van Flein, who was hired last month, challenged the jurisdiction of Stephen Branchflower, the retired prosecutor hired to investigate and report back to the legislature by the last week of October.

When Palin entered the governor's office in late 2006, Wooten already had been reprimanded, reassigned and suspended for five days for incidents reported by Palin's family. They had filed complaints in April 2005 after her younger sister's marriage fell apart and the couple battled in a bitter child-custody dispute.

Palin has said previously that she discussed Wooten with Monegan only in the context of security concerns for the family. Monegan has said that Palin never directly told him to fire Wooten but that the message was clearly conveyed through repeated messages from Palin, her husband and three members of her Cabinet.

"To allege that I, or any member of my family . . . directed disciplinary action be taken against any employee of the Department of Public Safety, is, quite simply, outrageous," Palin said in a statement in mid-July after Monegan's dismissal.

In August, Palin acknowledged that "pressure could have been perceived to exist, although I have only now become aware of it."

During an interview here Wednesday, Monegan said that as Alaska's top law enforcement official, he took his duties seriously. "I would willingly die for the governor, but I would never lie for her," he said.

He showed The Post two e-mails he received from Palin, but he declined to give copies. The first e-mail came on Feb. 7, 2007, after the governor's husband, Todd, met with Monegan to press the case for disciplinary action against Wooten. Palin's family had accused the trooper of shooting a cow moose without a permit, Tasering his stepson, and drinking while driving a trooper vehicle. After her husband met with Monegan, Palin followed up with a phone call to Monegan.

In that first e-mail, sent a few weeks after the meeting, Palin encouraged Monegan to testify for a bill that would require 99-year sentences for police officers found guilty of murder. "For police officers to violate the public trust is a grave, grave violation -- in my opinion. We have too many examples lately of cops and troopers who violate the public trust. DPS has come across as merely turning a blind eye or protecting that officer, seemingly 'for the good of the brotherhood'."

She cited Wooten's case as an example of violating the public trust. She recounted his transgressions, beginning with the killing of the cow moose using a permit obtained by his wife. Molly McCann, who uses her name from a previous marriage, was with Wooten at the time.

"He's still bragging about it in my hometown and after another cop confessed to witnessing the kill, the trooper was 'investigated' for over a year and merely given a slap on the wrist," the e-mail said. "Though he's out there arresting people today for the same crime!"

"He threatened to kill his estranged wife's parent, refused to be transferred to rural Alaska and continued to disparage Natives in words and tone, he continues to harass and intimidate his ex. -- even after being slapped with a restraining order that was lifted when his supervisors intervened," the e-mail said. "He threatens to always be able to come out on top because he's 'got the badge', etc. etc. etc.)"

Palin wrote that the Wooten matter had contributed to "the erosion of faith Alaskans should have in their law enforcement officials." She concluded by saying the e-mail was "just my opinion."

The second e-mail Monegan produced came from Palin's Yahoo address on July 17, 2007, after the local newspaper publicized a legislative proposal that would keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

Her first thought about the bill, the e-mail said, "went to my ex-brother-in-law, the trooper, who threatened to kill my dad yet was not even reprimanded by his bosses and still to this day carries a gun, of course."

"We can't have double standards. Remember when the death threat was reported, and follow-on threats from Mike that he was going to 'bring Sarah and her family down' -- instead of any reprimand WE were told by trooper union personnel that we'd be sued if we talked about those threats. Amazing. . . .

"So consistency is needed here," the e-mail said. "No one's above the law. If the law needs to be changed to not allow access to guns for people threatening to kill someone, it must apply to everyone."

Research editor Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.

The TIME magazine article, wherein it is learned Mayor Palin wanted to ban books in the Wasilla Public Library, in addition to other things.

Tuesday, Sep. 02, 2008

Mayor Palin: A Rough Record

By Nathan Thornburgh / Wasilla, Alaska

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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Background: Palin's faith

First to take a stab at covering Palin's religious experience and convictions is Suzanne Sataline for the Wall Street Journal.

Palin's Faith Is Seen
In Church Upbringing

By SUZANNE SATALINE

September 4, 2008; Page A6

At the Pentecostal church where Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin worshipped for more than two decades, congregants speak in tongues and are part of a faith that believes humanity is in its "end times" -- the days preceding a world-ending cataclysm bringing Christian redemption and the second coming of Jesus.

The Rev. Ed Kalnins, pastor of the Pentecostal church, Wasilla Assembly of God, says he has told church members that God put President George W. Bush in office and that America is locked in a "holy war" with terrorists.
[Gov. Palin is prayed over by Pastor Ed Kalnins and a congregation made up of nearly 20 different churches and denominations.]1
Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell's Web site
Gov. Palin, second from left, is prayed over by Pastor Ed Kalnins and a congregation made up of nearly 20 different churches and denominations at One Lord Sunday in the Mat-Su Valley, Alaska, in June.

Mr. Kalnins's views and the teachings of his church provide a glimpse of the religious upbringing of Gov. Palin, 44 years old, whose Christian credentials and antiabortion views have been lauded by social conservatives. Gov. Palin hasn't discussed her personal and spiritual beliefs since she was named to Sen. John McCain's ticket on Friday, and the campaign hasn't been eager to discuss them.

"I am not going to get into that. I think talking about where she worships today and how she characterizes herself speaks for itself about where she is today on this issue," says Maria Comella, a campaign spokeswoman.

As a junior high schooler, Gov. Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God, where she attended with her family until 2002 before joining another church, which is evangelical and nondenominational, according to Mr. Kalnins, the pastor since 1999. He said the governor has continued to visit his church for meetings and conferences.

At Mr. Kalnins's invitation, Gov. Palin appeared on stage in June before a youth group at Wassila Assembly of God, where she reminisced fondly about getting baptized there, before asking the young people to pray for a proposed natural-gas pipeline in Alaska and for American soldiers.

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right also for this country," Gov. Palin said, in a video of the talk posted on the church's Web site. Pray "that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure we're praying for: that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

David Gushee, a Christian ethicist at Mercer University in Atlanta, says he is troubled that a public official might presume that government action could be God's intent. "I would never think it is appropriate to describe the actions of the United States military or the strategies of our commanders as a plan from God," Mr. Gushee says.

Mr. Gushee says Gov. Palin should explain her beliefs concerning the inevitability of a cataclysm and the end of time. "To me, it is highly relevant to someone who potentially has her hand on the nuclear button," he says. "If that is her worldview, I would want to know about that."

The McCain campaign has said Gov. Palin was baptized as an infant in the Catholic Church and that for the last seven years, she and her family have attended the Wasilla Bible Church, a nondenominational church in Wasilla. The church is evangelical, though not Pentecostal or charismatic, and believers don't speak in tongues, said its pastor, the Rev. Larry Kroon. He described the church's teachings as "so normal." Several sermons, posted on the Internet, discuss aspects of common Christian theology, such as the significance of communion.

While in Juneau, the state capital, Gov. Palin attends the Juneau Christian Center, an Assemblies of God church, while in session, said her spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow.

At the Wasilla Assembly of God, Mr. Kalnins's predecessor, the Rev. Tim McGraw, who served until 1998, says Gov. Palin attended a "discipleship class ... to deepen her faith in Christ" and worshipped at the church at least twice a week.

The Wasilla Assembly of God and its parent denomination -- the three-million member General Council of the Assemblies of God -- espouse core beliefs not widely ascribed to by major Christian factions. Many members pray in undecipherable sounds or "tongues." The denomination's Web site says some scholars believe that the "end times" foreshadowing the end of the world was confirmed in 1948, with the founding of the state of Israel, marking the Jews' return to the Holy Land, fulfilling a Biblical prophecy. The Assemblies of God is part of a Pentecostal movement that numbers 80 million people world-wide.

The Bible, Mr. Kalnins said in an interview, foretells world events. "I don't think it's God's will to have a war," he says. But in Iraq, America is fighting an enemy that has made it a war over beliefs, he said. "I really think it is a holy war. It's a war of gods. ... When someone fights in the name of God, that becomes a holy war."

Mr. Kalnins is an enthusiastic supporter of "Governor Sarah," as he calls her, and of President George W. Bush, who, he believes, was put in office by the hand of the divine. "I believe criticisms come from hell. God has placed this man in authority. ... You criticize the authority, you're literally bringing in hell with the criticism."

Write to Suzanne Sataline at suzanne.sataline@wsj.com

URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122048406528596987.html

Read original article HERE.