hockey mum .....

The world arrived here more than a century ago with the gold rush and later the railroad. Yet one aspect of American life did not come to town until 1996, the year Sarah Palin ran for mayor and Wasilla got its first local lesson in wedge politics.

The traditional turning points that had decided municipal elections in this town of less than 7,000 people — Should we pave the dirt roads? Put in sewers? Which candidate is your hunting buddy? — seemed all but obsolete the year Ms. Palin, then 32, challenged the three-term incumbent, John C. Stein.

Anti-abortion fliers circulated. Ms. Palin played up her church work and her membership in the National Rifle Association. The state Republican Party, never involved before because city elections are non-partisan, ran advertisements on Ms. Palin’s behalf.

Two years after Representative Newt Gingrich helped draft the Contract With America to advance Republican positions, Ms. Palin and her passion for Republican ideology and religious faith overtook a town known for a wide libertarian streak and for helping start the Iditarod sled dog race.

Palin’s Start in Alaska - Not Politics as Usual

By Gus Leonisky at 4 Sep 2008 - 11:14pm
Gus Leonisky's blog
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the pitbull with lipstick

Why the Democrats should worry...

From Slate ...

It was clear Palin was having fun, and it's hard to have fun if you're scared or a lightweight. She had command, the same quality people attributed to Obama in 2004. Yes, she had speechwriters and she knows how to read a teleprompter. But there are plenty of politicians who've had great speeches and years of practice and still need lots of help. (One of them, actually, is Palin's running mate.)

The biggest target of Palin's succession of happy little kicks in the groin, of course, was Barack Obama. She painted him as a vapid, self-obsessed fog machine of words. He was on a "journey of personal discovery," whereas McCain was running for office to serve. She made fun of his presidential seal, his two memoirs, and, most pointedly, his remarks at a San Francisco fundraiser. "In small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening."

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When I was doing the toon above, I started with a picture where Obama was stating "Jesus Christ" (a sort of an underlying "sobriquet" given to him by the media) while introducing himself, to which Palin retorted "GOD, the mother." I did not want to be so glib, thus I changed tack.

McCain wanted to first restore the gilding of the Republicans in the eyes of the Republicans. He wanted to give his party a momentum lost under the present flounderer-in-chief. Restore the pride in being American and not being afraid to kick-ass. Very redneck-ish but popular. By choosing Palin as his running mate, a "redneck" formidable woman, McCain has done just that. It has always been my view that Hillary was better placed in the Democrats to counteract the bites from the bulldogs eventually to emerge from the other side. The pecking order in the pack is like a pack of wolves. See what the voters decide in November when the two packs meet... Either it might mot make much difference, and the non-aligned presidential candidates might crack the votes.

Hopefully our democratic systems will grow up one day and dispense with this circus.