Disclaimer: After observing, living, and breathing the media treatment of Hillary and Obama's standoff during the primaries, I approach reports about Sarah Palin with caution. In spite of my personal perception of Palin, which is obviously colored by spoon-fed media soundbytes and personal quirks, I don't want to participate in vilifying a stranger by helping weave a chain of misinformation.
Apparently a credible and verified source, a female resident of Palin's state named Anne Kilkenny, approved the circulation of an e-mail outlining Palin's not-so-stellar history in Alaskan politics. You can Google "Anne Kilkenny Alaska" for more background, but I posted the long text below for you to read.
Additional Disclaimer: Anne Kilkenny is also human. Her opinion of Palin is colored by personal quirks, punctuated by differences in personality and opinion, and peppered with stories/statistics that can be (and often are, inadvertently or not) twisted to support a particular position. Keep that in mind and decide for yourself:
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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 . . .
You may distribute it to your friends/email list with my name and
email address attached, but I’m NOT willing to have it posted on a
webpage with my name and email address attached (there’s too many kooks
out there!)
Bottomline: the only thing Sarah Palin has in common with Hillary Clinton is her gender and good looks.
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 “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a baby with Down
syndrome . There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.
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 borrowing.
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 criticizing her pay as too high in
the press . 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 was fined).
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
initiative 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 unconstitutional).
-
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
-
gutsy: absolutely!
-
open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
-
has a developed philosophy of public policy: no •”a Greenie”: no.
Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected
parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
-
fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
-
pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city
without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built
streets to early 20th century standards.
-
pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on
residents
- pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city
government in Wasilla’s history.
-
pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t
make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she
is pro-labor/pro-union.
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
[email protected]
August 31, 2008
Additional sources for your reading pleasure:
http://www.andrys.com/palin-kilkenny.html
Fairly Conservative: A chat with Anne Kilkenny from Alaska