the Palin enigma-
I get so crazy tired of shrill this and false choice that in the damned game show that passes for daily political coverage. I believe that Ms Palin wouldn't have been elected governor if she didn't take care of subsistence-roots , primarily republican/libertarian Alaskans in a way that many of them are used too if not comfortable with. I admit, my vision of Alaska is formed by Hollywood:
"Never Cry Wolf" to "Grizzly Man" with "Northern Exposure" in between. Rugged possibly half-drunk survivalists interweaved with Thoreau-type danger-seeking dreamers. Now that Alaska is really in the spotlight I am catching glimmers of "strip malls" and hunters, "roads to nowhere" as if there would be a whole lot of "somewhere" in Alaska. I expect it is a damned dangerous state to live in with barely tamed nature nipping close. It is refreshing to read this week's New Yorker with a nicely reported (complete with interview and plenty of local research)"Letter from Alaska"
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/09/22/080922fa_fact_gourevitch?currentPage=all"As governor, Palin has done nothing to impose her religious or social views. Alaska has no death penalty, and during the campaign she said that she would support one, but never made an issue of it; she opposed abortion even for pregnancies caused by rape, but this was a personal opinion, not a legislative cause. In fact, she refused requests to put abortion bills on the agenda during a special legislative session this summer, preferring to discuss the natural-gas pipeline, which she pursued in such a bipartisan manner that she ultimately won more solid support for it from Democrats than from Republicans....So it was startling to see Palin emerge in the last days of August as an icon of the evangelical base of the Republican Party, and as a fierce—often vituperative—partisan scourge, mocking Barack Obama’s character and positions."
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/toc/2008/09/22/toc_20080915Of course the Republican king-maker machine is beyond shamelessly terrible. Ms Palin is not the only evil pawn of the hucksters and snake-oil peddlers who have robbed this country blind. I am sickened by the nationalization of christianity (if I hear one more Democrat say in a political public forum "god bless you all" I will PUKE). But I suspected that the republicans, Libertarians, and dems who kept reelecting Ted Stevens weren't just being played like fiddles. It is refreshing to contemplate the third dimension on occasion.
Obama-Biden 2012 b/w VOTE DAMMIT!
(edited by repo to correct serious error in Alaska's political make-up-- thanks wiki)