One of the criticisms leveled against GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is her alleged lack of experience, as she has served “only” as mayor of a small town and governor of a sparsely populated state. But as an Oct. 1 Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out, the governor’s offi ce in Alaska is one of the nation’s most powerful. For over 20 years, Thad Beyle, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina, has maintained an index of “institutional powers” in state offices. Beyle has rated governorships on budgetary and appointment authority, veto power and other factors. His findings for 2008 rate Alaska at 4.1 on a scale of 5. New York is among only four states that concentrate as much power in the governor’s office as does Alaska, and only one state (Massachusetts) concentrates more. Incidentally, Alaska also has two electoral votes, the same as Joe Biden’s Delaware. Palin is in charge of a state with 16,000 full-time employees and a budget of nearly $12 billion. In 1992, Americans elected a governor of a small state (Arkansas) with a budget of only $2 billion. While Bill Clinton lacks many things — a moral compass and a clear understanding of just what constitutes sexual relations come to mind — I don’t remember anyone, especially our liberal friends in the Fourth Estate, saying he lacked experience. The opposition to Palin, of course, goes a lot deeper. It’s really about ideology and the direction in which she and John McCain want to take America. The left loathes much of what Palin supports: the freedom of lawabiding citizens to own a firearm, the rights of the unborn, discussion of creationism in our public schools, capital punishment and traditional marriage. Those are weighty issues, ones that divide many Americans. Palin’s opponents across the cultural divide should be honest and say why they really want to see her candidacy fail. If anyone has an experience deficit, it’s the Democratic Party’s new standard bearer. It’s incredible to imagine how anyone could honestly believe a former “community organizer” and two-term state senator who has served less than two years in Washington, could possibly have the gravitas to lead our nation in these perilous times.
Reports show Alaska paid for Palin kids’ travel The Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business. The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel. In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 roundtrip commercial flights since she took offi ce in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls. Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor’s children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business. As governor, Palin justified having the state pay for the travel of her daughters — Bristol, 17; Willow, 14; and Piper, 7 — by noting on travel forms that the girls had been invited to attend or participate in events on the governor’s schedule. But some organizers of these events said they were surprised when the Palin children showed up uninvited, or said they agreed to a request by the governor to allow the children to attend. Several other organizers said the children merely accompanied their mother and did not participate. The trips enabled Palin, whose main state office is in the capital of Juneau, to spend more time with her children. “She said any event she can take her kids to is an event she tries to attend,” said Jennifer McCarthy, who helped organize the June 2007 Family Day Celebration picnic in Ketchikan that Piper attended with her parents. State Finance Director Kim Garnero told The Associated Press she has not reviewed the Palins’ travel expense forms, so she could not say whether the daughters’ travel with their mother would meet the definition of offi cial business. On Aug. 6, three weeks before Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain chose Palin his running mate, and after Alaska reporters asked for the records, Palin ordered changes to previously filed expense reports for her daughters’ travel. In the amended reports, Palin added phrases such as “First Family attending” and “First Family invited” to explain the girls’ attendance. “The governor said, ’I want the purpose and the reason for this travel to be clear,’” said Linda Perez, state director of administrative services. When Palin released her family’s tax records as part of her vice presidential campaign, some tax experts questioned why she did not report the children’s state travel reimbursements as income.
Froma Harrop McCain lost it when he made far-right VP pick Froma Harrop is a nationally syndicated columnist.
John McCain’s top adviser complains that the media apply a double standard when they cover his candidate. “They think they’re on the level with McCain, that he’s not the old McCain,” Mark Salter tells The Atlantic, “but he is the old McCain. He just doesn’t know what happened to the old press corps.” Let me explain. For the longest time, I was sitting on the fence, as were many centrists. A former Hillary Clinton supporter, I was bothered by Barack Obama’s thin resume, his rockstar rallies and the sexism tolerated by his campaign. At the same time, I admired McCain for his fiscal rectitude, history of bipartisanship and concern over global warming. That the right wing despised him for several high-profile breaks with the Bush administration — notably on torture and the early tax cuts — was a plus. In June, I ran some interference for Mc-Cain among Hillary voters: I shared my genuine belief that despite his “pro-life” voting record, McCain probably wouldn’t take steps toward outlawing abortion — and if he did, the Democratic House and Senate would stop him. I gave some pretty good evidence (though I forgot to mention McCain’s vote confirming Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the most pro-choice member of the Supreme Court). My thesis that McCain had shown some latitude on the issue was roundly slammed in both The Nation and The New Republic. The Nation wrongly implied that I hated Obama. (Not loving isn’t the same as hating.) The New Republic item was better reasoned but oddly ignored a recent interview in which McCain said that he would consider a pro-choice running mate, namely former Pennsylvania Gov. and ex-U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t always in the tank for Obama. Nor was the public, which, polls showed, stood evenly divided into early September. What happened, Mark? Sarah Palin happened. Independents like me wanted two things out of a McCain running mate. (1) A capable leader who could step into the top job should something happen to the notvery-young No. 1. (2) Someone who would temper McCain’s recent efforts to woo social conservatives. They got neither in the Alaska governor. Sure, Palin gave him a bump in the polls right after the Republican convention. She gave a rousing speech, written by a crack speechwriter. But once on her own, she quickly displayed a shocking ignorance of world affairs and a general inability to talk coherently on policy matters. Her habit of dividing America — even individual states — into good and not-as-good sectors comes off as downright weird. Just look at the RealClearPolitics poll averages dating back to early September. The McCain-Palin numbers started cratering about a week after the convention, which was two weeks before the stock market did. Independents tend to be fiscally conservative, socially liberal and strong on defense. They were McCain’s natural constituency and in mid-September gave him a 13-point margin. That lead has since flipped over to Obama, and Palin is a big reason. The choice of her as McCain’s VP would have been politically brilliant had a Democrat made it. As recently as three months ago, partisan Democrats were accusing centrist pundits of giving McCain a free pass by ignoring his conservative record. Maybe there’s still an old John McCain under what we now see. But who can tell? Obama also deserves much credit for the change in attitude. He dropped the rockstar persona and showed himself to be an informed and disciplined candidate. The new Obama might have won over the fence sitters under any scenario, but one thing is obvious: If McCain had named Ridge as his running mate, he’d be getting a whole lot more love right now.
Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE GOP elites squirm at rise of the base Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 or by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.
I’m going to take a few days off to cultivate my figurative garden, and before I go I’d like to get in a few last licks on the election. First of all, as I’ve said before Sarah Palin has energized me like no other candidate in recent times and never mind what conservative columnists like David Brooks and Kathleen Parker say about her (“a cancer on the Republican Party” and “clearly out of her league,” respectively). Or Peggy Noonan (“a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics”) or Christopher Buckley (“for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November.”). Apart from my affection for her as Little Miss Mooseslayer, I like her for bringing into the open the Republican base — the gun freaks, the abortion absolutists, the antitax dervishes, the Christians waiting for the Rapture, the rednecks hollering for Obama’s head. The whole I’m-ignorant-and-proudof-it crowd, which had previously remained half-hidden on the fringes, allowing free-market and small-government theorists to present themselves as the soul of the party. It has been great fun to see the base howling in public and to see high-minded conservatives like Noonan and Buckley squirm. The Republican Party has been nurturing this yahoo base of theirs since Richard Nixon identifi ed it as the Silent Majority, and it has made for a jolly alliance — the yahoos and the philosophers, the latter previously providing intellectual cover for simple corporate greed but now willy-nilly fronting for something bigger, and weirder. It was fine as long as the yahoos kept low, but when President Bush brought them into the White House because of their “faith” and gave them respectability, things began to change. Now Little Miss Mooseslayer has brought the situation to a head with her eye-winking appeal to the “pro-America parts of this country,” and it’s been a delight to watch. A delight to watch the conservative philosophers twitch and scratch and look over their shoulders. (“How did we get into this?”) A delight also to see how her patron, John McCain, has scrambled to keep up with the parade that he launched, having to assure a mob that Obama is not an Arab but a decent family man. Scorning Obama for being eloquent, denouncing him for wanting to spread wealth around (of all un-American things), and portraying him as the pal of a terrorist because of a passing association even while placing offlimits Obama’s very real and very long association with the Americadamning black nationalist Jeremiah Wright. Myself, I like Obama for his intelligence and his composure, but I’m frustrated at his praising McCain in the debates for McCain’s opposition to torture, when in fact Mc-Cain switched positions early this year and voted to allow the CIA to use “extra measures” forbidden to the military, in line with the desires of President Bush. I’m exasperated that he says nothing about Guantanamo, nothing about “extraordinary rendition,” nothing about wiretapping American citizens, nothing about Bush’s whole expansion of presidential police powers under the theory of a “unitary executive.” I’m not plumping for anyone, though I do believe John McCain has made an awful a** of himself in the campaign, and of course I say that with great respect. I do not forget that he has performed heroic service to this country, even if his most recent service, outing his party’s base through the medium of Sarah Palin, was unintentional. Now I’m out of here.
Strock has sure made a lot of friends over the years with his loving articles, not.
Strock and the rest of them are steering off what they were ment to be....an unbias hometown newspaper. If strock were in radio, I'd say that he was trying, and rather unsuccessfully, to be a 'shock jock'.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
It is interesting to note that the Republican presidential ticket constantly reminds the electorate of the scourge of big government and increased spending by the Democratic Party. Who are they, the Republicans, to call the Democrats the party of the big spenders? The current Republican administration was left a surplus, a balanced budget and a robust economy by the Clinton administration. They are leaving us with a huge defi cit and an economy in shambles. And they call the Democrats the party of big spenders!
The current Republican administration was left a surplus, a balanced budget and a robust economy by the Clinton administration.
I guess Ms.Tepper forgot about the 'Clinton Homestead Act' another vote purchase.....then he left with his cigar box and let the house of cards pile up....only to fall after the fickle memory of the plebs was affected by reality TV.......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Mona Charen Ten good reasons to vote McCain Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.
10.) John McCain is much, much funnier than Barack Obama. But then, almost everyone is. 9.) John McCain is a passionate patriot who has always been, and will always be, guided by what he thinks is best for America. He can trace his ancestry back to an officer on Gen. George Washington’s staff and his family has served the nation nobly in war and peace ever since. McCain believes in winning wars. 8.) McCain’s intimate familiarity with military matters also makes him less biddable by the armed services. He was able, when most others (most notably his opponent) were not, to see that a change of strategy in Iraq — not a retreat — was needed. He brings an informed skepticism to military procurement requests as well. 7.) As he told Rick Warren, McCain believes that there is evil in the world and that it must be confronted. While Mrs. Obama and many others seem to think that our enemies will purr like kittens once we inaugurate a black man with an Islamic middle name, that is dangerous fantasy. When asked for an example of evil, McCain mentioned al-Qaida putting explosive vests on two mentally impaired girls and blowing them up by remote control in an Iraqi marketplace. Obama, whose turn of mind is different, cautioned that the problem is sometimes us: “a lot of evil has been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.” 6.) McCain may not be a Ph.D. economist, but he understands that raising taxes and adopting protectionist trade policies will deepen and prolong this recession. Nor would he permit Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to push through the “card check” law — a union-backed measure that would reverse 73 years of labor law in this country by scuttling the secret ballot in union elections. Even George McGovern has denounced this job-killing, freedomsmothering law that Obama supports. Greater unionization will translate into lost productivity, inflationary pressure, and fewer jobs. 5.) John McCain will try to protect the unborn. Barack Obama is the most radical pro-abortion candidate ever to win a presidential nomination. Obama has promised to back the Freedom of Choice Act as his first presidential act, which would invalidate all restrictions on abortion at any stage of gestation — and even in cases where babies are born alive after an attempted abortion. 4.) McCain will employ diplomacy, not worship it. Obama is deluded about the power of “talks.” In 2007, he proposed, regarding Iran’s nuclear program: “if we are meeting with them, talking to them, and offering them both carrots and sticks, they are more likely to change their behavior.” 3.) John McCain has said that his models for good judicial picks are John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Senator Obama will pick Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich (just kidding, but his choices won’t be far off). 2.) McCain’s health care proposal will improve the world’s best health care delivery system. He proposes to reform the most distorting aspect of our current system (the tax break for employers) and give the tax break to individuals instead. It is McCain’s proposal, not Obama’s, that will give individuals the choice to stay with the plan they have or take the tax credit and shop around (in a market enlarged by permitting interstate insurance). Obama’s plan, by contrast, is a key first step to achieving his oft-repeated preference for a single-payer system like Canada’s. By forcing employers to provide certain (as yet unspecified) benefits or pay a tax (“play or pay”), Obama’s plan will encourage employers to dump more and more people into a government-run health insurance system like Medicare. Word to the wise: In Canada, they are seeking to reduce wait times for care. One province reported waits of 26 weeks for hip replacements, and others are trying to ensure (without success) that cancer patients are treated within 4 weeks of diagnosis. 1.) The financial crisis and looming recession, combined with President Bush’s low approval ratings, have set the stage for this election to be a pivot point in American history. If Barack Obama is elected president and Democrats control large majorities in the House and Senate, the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate will move the country decisively in the direction of dying Europe — low productivity, high joblessness, low birth rates, high taxes, and limp foreign policies. The triumvirate will do this at a time when a vibrant America is more necessary than ever — with Iran seeking nuclear weapons, Pakistan teetering, al-Qaida regrouping, China and Russia telegraphing hostility, and Iraq just barely emerging into the sunshine. This election has become about far more than John Mc-Cain vs. Barack Obama; it has become about whether the United States will remain the champion of freedom — economic and political — or whether we will join the queue of formerly great nations now struggling to pay for all the social welfare “benefi ts” their aging and lazy populations demand.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A report has cleared Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of ethics violations in the firing of her public safety commissioner.
Released Monday, the report says there is no probable cause to believe Palin or any other state official violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with the firing. The report was prepared by Timothy Petumenos, an independent counsel for the Alaska Personnel Board.
A separate legislative investigation recently concluded that Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, abused her office by allowing her husband and staffers to pressure the public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper who went through a nasty divorce from Palin's sister.
Palin says the firing had nothing to do with the trooper.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP)—A report detailing whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power by firing her public safety commissioner will be released on the eve of the election.
Timothy Petumenos, an independent investigator hired by the Alaska Personnel Board, says he will release the report during a news conference 7:30 p.m. EST Monday.
A separate legislative panel earlier found that Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, abused her office by allowing her husband and other staffers to pressure the public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper who went through a nasty divorce from Palin's sister. She fired the commissioner, but denies it had anything to do with the trooper.
Report clears Palin in Troopergate probe The Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A report has cleared Gov. Sarah Palin of ethics violations in the firing of her public safety commissioner. The report, released Monday, said: “There is no probable cause to believe that the governor, or any other state official, violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with these matters.” It was prepared by Timothy Petumenos, an independent counsel for the Alaska Personnel Board. A separate legislative investigation recently concluded that Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, abused her office by allowing her husband and staffers to pressure the public safety commissioner to fi re a state trooper who went through a nasty divorce from Palin’s sister. Palin fired Walter Monegan, but denies his dismissal was related to the trooper. Alaska Personnel Board investigations are normally secret, but the three-member board decided to release this report, citing public interest in the matter given Palin’s status as a candidate for national office. Election Day is today. Palin had earlier waived her privacy rights, but others in her administration did not and Petumenos sought to keep the matter from playing out in the media. Petumenos said documents to be released Monday would not include transcripts of separate depositions given by Palin and her husband, Todd. That deposition was the only one given by Sarah Palin. She was not subpoenaed to answer questions in the Legislature’s investigation, though her husband, Todd, gave an affidavit in that probe. Palin initially said she would cooperate with the Legislature’s probe. But after she became John McCain’s running mate, she said the investigation had become too partisan and filed an ethics grievance against herself with the personnel board.
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