How Palin Beat Alaska's Establishment

Every state has its share of crony capitalism, but Big Oil and the GOP political machine have taken that term to new heights in Alaska. The oil industry, which provides 85% of state revenues, has strived to own the government. Alaska's politicians—in particular ruling Republicans—roll in oil campaign money, lavish oil revenue on pet projects, then retire to lucrative oil jobs where they lobby for sweetheart oil deals. You can love the free market and not love this.

Reagan was Reagan. Palin is Palin.
They’re both great in their own right, but they are not the same.
Like Reagan, Palin is a natural speaker who the camera loves.
We know that like Reagan, she is a tough minded conservative small-government reformer who stands strong in the face of adversary, but we don’t yet know her foreign policy positions. We just don’t know yet if she is the foreign policy heavy-weight, and after all, foreign policy was Reagan’s true legacy.

So lets not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet. It’s going to take some time to get a true sense of her.

A while back when this was mostly a rumor about her being the VP nominees I had a feeling of where it was going and I said many times here at FR about her not being qualified, we do not want her to leave Alaska, she made our lives better, she created jobs for many and really cared for us, all I can say is a person has to live here to know the full effects she has had upon Alaska, we do not want her to be tainted, coiffed up or “power suited”, she is OUR Sarah.

Of course I and we all back her up, its just a shame now the rest of the world wants her.

It is proper and relevant to draw comparisons between Reagan and Palin.

Palin has the ability to change the direction of the country, to bring democrats and independents into the fold and to clean up the Republican party through the leadership, conservative values, and courage she has already shown. This is not a stranger on the street, she has a political history and a record of achievement.

One can measure the threat to the left she is by their hysteria and that is great.

John McCain should be given credit for doing as he has always done, even when we didn’t appreciate it, what he believes is right for the country without regard for his own reward. He is showing that he will make room on his platform for Palin to even overshadow him as long as the good that he wants done gets done. That is rare for a man, it is rare for anyone. We need to remember and honor him for that courage and strength because Palin is going to overshadow all these candidates soon.

Also, I think Reagan is smiling down on us with glee that this woman has come from “nowhere” and shook up the establishment so much. Bet he likes the comparisons...

I believe that someday we are going to have a woman president, possibly during my life, and I’ve often thought the best way to pave the way for this was to first nominate and elect a woman as vice-president. But I think Mondale made a serious mistake when he picked Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. In my view, he guessed wrong in deciding to take a congresswoman that almost nobody had ever heard of and try to put her in line for the presidency. We have had many successful woman governors around the country who have demonstrated the potential to serve as president, but he overlooked them.

Thank you for posting this article. Frankly I had only heard bits and pieces about Sarah being a reformer, but I really had no idea what she took on in Alaska. Sarah took on a corrupt Republican Governor and a corrupt system where the oil companies were getting sweet deals by bribing Alaskan officials and she blew the whistle on them and managed to end decades of corruption, apparently as a lone wolf.

The fact of the matter is that what she did was not only politically courageous, but personally courageous. There was a time, not too long ago, where taking on such establishment corruption would mean that they would find a typewritten suicide note in your home after you had disappeared from the face of the planet. Taking on imbedded corruption is a very dangerous business. The people she exposed would probably have no qualms about spending the same money that they are using to bribe public officials to hire someone to make sure that their nefarious business practices are kept under wraps.

Read this article. Then think about whether you would have the same courage as Sarah Palin.

About 20 years ago I discovered some nefarious practices of some medical clinics that were capping people for lawsuits and I challenged them personally. I didn't really think anything about the implications of going after these creeps for fraud and I kind of did it as a knee jerk reaction. I later found out that this operation was run by the Russian mafia.

Ultimately they were shut down and a lot of people went to prison, but I didn't have any idea what I was getting myself into. If I had known who I was dealing with at the time, I'm not so sure I could have been as aggressive in my dealings with that operation. I thought it was just a bunch of crooked doctors, but it turns out it went much deeper than that.

Sarah Palin had to know that she was stepping on some very important toes, and yet she did what she felt she needed to do. I don't know if, under the same circumstances, I would have had the guts to do the same. In fact, I know I wouldn't have.

Again, this is an article that everyone needs to read.

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