The Grand Illusion — Shattered?

Guess they should’ve picked someone even younger and more inexperienced.

The GOP thought Sarah Palin didn’t have a record on anything, and that they could shape her like soft clay into the superhuman, genetically-enhanced uber-candidate that would bolster the McCain ticket.

What is becoming clear is that she is far, far to the right of most American citizens in her beliefs, and was so devisive in her tactics as mayor that citizens wanted to boot her out.

Also, some of the books in the local library were apparently not to her liking. According to the NY Times:

Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.”

Only 17% of Alaska actually voted her in as Governor. It only took 114,697 votes to elect her. That’s about 2/3 the size of the entire population of Astoria, NY, the town where I lived before I moved to Long Island. Before that, it only took over 600 votes to elect her as mayor of Wasilla.

And as much as Joe Liebermann likes to talk about John McCain’s non-partisan nature, he might be interested to know that McCain’s running mate apparently liked to exercise extreme partisanship where none was needed. In small-town Alaska, local races seemed to be friendly, competitive affairs until Sarah Palin got into the fray with her take-no-prisoners attitude.

Do we really need another Dick Cheney in the White House?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *