Roger Nelson (1:3828/7) wrote to Steven Horn at 06:23 on 24 Sep 2008:

 RN> Oh, that goes without saying.  I like her a lot.  But I believe we
 RN> are all capable of being just like her, anatomical differences
 RN> aside.  

Because you like her, you may be interested in what at least one Alaskan
thinks about her:

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"Subject: FW: Alaska Resident Writes about Sarah Palin
 
This is a very thought provoking letter.
You can verify it at this link
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/kilkenny.asp The following letter
written by a long-time resident of Wasilla came off Huffington Post.com. 
It is quite telling.
 
Dear friends, So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah
Palin in the last 2 days that I decided to write something up .  .  .
 
Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in common:
their gender and their good looks.  :)
 
You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with
my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any
websites, as there are too many kooks out there .  .  .
 
Thanks, Anne ABOUT SARAH PALIN I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska.  I have
known Sarah 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% 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 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 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
life-style 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 2 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 6 years
as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 
33%.  During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City
increased by 38%.  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 benefited large
corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.
 
The huge increases in tax revenues 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 over $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.  $1m for a park.  $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use
sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property
that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation
7 yrs 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
$5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any b
 
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 she 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 revenues: 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 (see below).
 
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 2 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-Governor 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 & gas issues.  Within months of scoring this great
job which paid $122,400/yr, 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 wa
 
As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator
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.  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 a) protected salmon streams from pollution from
mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on
who you listen to).  She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. 
of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as 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's 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
 
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 (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), 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 & taxation 2 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-90's.
 
Anne Kilkenny [ annekilkenny{at}hotmail.com ]annekilkenny{at}hotmail.com August
31, 2008"
 
-----

Sorry for the length but I thought others might be interested as well.


Take care,

Steven Horn (steven.horn{at}northwestel.net)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+