Don’t underestimate Sarah Palin
By Ted Belman
On the Job
Sarah Palin has always been a competitor and social activist. Not only has she always criticized what was but she had ideas as to how things should be. Rather than contending herself with sounding off she acted to make things better. Rather than joining someone else’s bandwagon she created her own and invited others to get aboard. She gets things done. She is a natural manager and leader.
At least that’s the impression I got from watching the FOX News hour long program on her life. I also learned more about her from a Bloomberg article,
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The Club for Growth, which advocates lower taxes and government spending, praised Palin as a “genuine reformer” who has cut wasteful spending in her state. “At a time when many Republicans are still clinging to pork-barrel politics, Governor Palin has quickly become a leader on this issue,” the group’s president, Pat Toomey, said in a statement.
Palin has a strong anti-abortion record. She is a member of Feminists for Life, a group that works to make health-care and child-care resources available to “pregnant or parenting students,” according to the group’s Web site.
Gary Bauer said “She’s a solid conservative. She’ll help to elevate the issue of energy independence and the need to drill, and she’ll be warmly received by the pro-family and pro-life community.”
President George W. Bush called the pick “exciting” and said Palin “is a proven reformer who is a wise steward of taxpayer dollars and champion for accountability in government.”
Considered a rising political star by state Republican leaders, she was appointed in 2003 to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a significant body in the energy-rich state.
While on the commission, Palin led an ethics investigation of another member, state Republican Chairman Randy Ruedrich, who was accused of conflicts of interest involving oil companies.
Just today, HAARETZ reports Hawaii’s 1st Jewish governor: Palin more experienced than Obama
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Republican Governor Linda Lingle, the first Jewish chief executive of the Aloha State, declaring that Palin has more on-the-job experience than Barack Obama – Lingle, like the Republican vice-presidential candidate a former mayor of a small community, speaks with unique authority.
“As another woman Republican Governor, we know each other very well, and I can tell people in America and all over the world, that she is the unique combination of toughness and grace,”
“the Democrats’ presidential candidate has zero experience. He’s never led any city, never led any state. So our vice-presidential candidate has more experience than their presidential candidate has.”
Palin “is a proven leader on local level as well as the state level, she’s had a balanced budget, she’s had to deal with every issue from the environment to energy and healthcare to education and public safety, and she’s done it in a way that every governor does, which is: you make the final decision for which you’ll be accountable.
“It’s not like being in Congress, where no one might know you’re responsible,” she told Haaretz. “When you’re a governor you’re the one to make a decision. It’s a great, great preparation for a job such as vice president.”
Lingle says she has never discussed Israel-related issues with Palin. “But Senator McCain’s commitment to Israel is strong and well-known, and I assure your readers that he would not put someone on that ticket who did not have the same feelings. Certainly he has discussed those issues. Government Palin is a very religious person, and the religious Christians are the greatest supporters of Israel.”
According to Lingle, the Republican Party is likely to attract growing numbers of Jewish voters because “the Republicans have a much stronger position on Israel than the Democrats, and that’s why I think more people will be seen on the Republican side.
Lingle was interviewed on the FOX programme and she noted that Palin spoke at an energy conference in Hawaii and impressed everyone with her knowledge of the issues. While there she went into labour and flew back to Alaska to have her baby and was back on the job shortly thereafter.
In an other Bloomberg article written in March of this year titled Alaska’s Palin, Miss Congeniality, Makes Exxon, Conoco Comply
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Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a former beauty pageant winner, is succeeding where Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, a former paratrooper and military coup leader, so far has failed.
Palin threatened to evict Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest oil company, and partners BP Plc, Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips from a state-owned gas field, winning their promise to increase Alaska’s natural-gas output 17 percent. She raised taxes on oil profits by $1.5 billion a year and rejected industry ownership of a $25 billion pipeline.
Politicians and energy companies are haggling for revenue with oil around $100 a barrel. Exxon and partners say higher taxes may lead to fewer investments in Alaska, home to the second-largest U.S. reserves behind Texas. None has quit the state. Exxon and ConocoPhillips last year left Venezuela rather than accept lower profits when Chavez seized oil fields.
“We’ve got to play hardball,” says Republican Palin, 44, in an interview. Alaska relies on the energy industry for 85 percent of tax revenue and 33 percent of jobs. “The time is right to develop these resources because of the price of fuel.”
Like I say, don’t underestimate Sarah Palin.
The MSM and democrats don’t get it yet. The reason why Palin is proving to be such a popular choice for VP and why she may be the deciding factor in the election comes down to four words:
She’s one of us.
In a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people, Palin is being embraced as a true peoples’ candidate, perhaps even more so than Clinton or Reagan were embraced in their time. She is rightly viewed as the antithesis of Obama — anti-elite, a leader who lives, works, and thinks outside the Beltway, and someone who is not a product of political machinery. A woman who gets the kids ready for school in the morning and signs bills in the afternoon.
The war hero and the hockey mom: a formidable combination.
Documentary on Palin seen on Fox last night was filmed by Elan Frank an Israeli film maker. He tapped her 5 months before McCain probably ever heard of her. He said that she is unflappable and always is smiling.
Governor Lingle also impresses me as a capable, strong woman, and nice to know she is Jewish. Now I have two smart, confident, dark haired, eyeglass-wearing women to admire – succumbing to identity politics at last…but still wanting the Club for Growth to be thrown out of policy decisions.
I am so enjoying the reaction of ‘feminists’ like Gloria Steinem to the nomination of Sarah Palin.
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Bird, Lingle is no less impressive than Palin;
Linda Lingle (born Linda Cutter on June 4, 1953) has been Governor of Hawaii since December 2, 2002. She was sworn in for a second term on December 4, 2006.
Lingle holds a number of distinctions: first Republican elected governor of Hawaii since the departure of William F. Quinn in 1962, first county mayor elected governor of Hawaii, first female governor of Hawaii, first Jewish governor of Hawaii; the second Jewish woman elected governor of a U.S. state; and the first governor of Hawaii not to have any children. During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, Lingle served as chairperson of the convention during the absence of permanent chairperson Dennis Hastert from the convention floor.
Prior to her gubernatorial administration, Lingle served as Maui County mayor, councilmember, and chaired the Hawaii Republican Party. On November 20, 2006, her approval rating stood at 71% with only 24% disapproval.
Born Linda Cutter in St. Louis, Missouri 1953, Lingle moved with her family to Southern California when she was 12. She graduated from Birmingham High School in Lake Balboa, California, then received her bachelor’s degree in journalism cum laude from California State University, Northridge, in 1975.
Soon after that, she followed her father to Hawaii, working first in Honolulu as a public information officer for the Teamsters and Hotel Workers Union. Later, she moved to Molokai, where she started the Molokai Free Press, a community newspaper which became a big success.
County politics
In 1980, Lingle was elected to the Maui County Council, where she served five 2-year terms. Lingle served three of those terms representing Molokai and two terms as an at-large member. Upon the 1990 retirement of Hannibal Tavares as mayor of Maui County, Lingle decided to challenge former Maui mayor and Hawai’i State Speaker of the House of Representatives Elmer Cravalho for the seat. Despite polls showing Lingle trailing far behind her Democratic opponent, Lingle proved victorious. The Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspapers declared the election one of the biggest upsets in Hawai’i political history. She became the youngest person elected to the office of Maui County Mayor, at the age of 37, as well as the first woman. In 1994, Lingle easily won re-election.
Maui County, under the leadership of Mayor Lingle, implemented performance-based budgeting. Its’ successful passage and execution earned for Lingle the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award from the Government Finance Officers Association for four years. Mayor Lingle was also credited for attracting tourism and job growth to Maui County during a period when the state tourism industry was struggling.
1998 gubernatorial campaign
Lingle would once again attempt an upset victory, this time in pursuit of the governor’s office in 1998. Barred from seeking a third term as mayor of Maui, Lingle was nominated by the Hawai?i Republican Party to run against incumbent Governor Benjamin J. Cayetano. Republican party members believed that Lingle was the best shot at the office and that 1998 would probably be the only chance the party would have of ever winning. Lingle capitalized on the anger of Hawai?i residents over the stagnant economy and their dissatisfaction with the strategies employed by the Democrats in attempt to solve the problem. Cayetano trailed in the media polls heading into the November election but on the evening of the election, Cayetano and Lingle were separated by a single percentage point forcing a recount. Lingle was defeated in the closest election in Hawai?i history.
The state Democratic Party was accused, although there was no evidence, of launching a whisper campaign alleging that Lingle was a lesbian, and that because she was Jewish, she would abolish Christmas as a state holiday.
Republican leadership
After being defeated, Lingle was elected chair of the Hawai?i Republican Party. She served from 1999 to 2002. During her tenure as party chair, Lingle overhauled party policies and gave the party a facelift she believed was needed to make the party competitive in a historically Democratic Party dominated state. Internal reforms proved successful and Lingle succeeded in electing more Republicans to seats in both houses of the Hawai?i State Legislature. At the peak of Republican success, the party held 19 of the 51 seats in the state House of Representatives. Party membership grew as younger people joined. Republicans gained a more youthful appearance and had reinvented itself informally as the new GOP Hawai?i. Governor Lingle is a member of The Wish List which is America’s largest fundraising and campaign political action committee for Pro-choice Republican Women and The Republican Majority For Choice.
2002 gubernatorial campaign
Barred from seeking a third term, Cayetano announced his retirement from political service in 2002. Having become even more popular among Hawai?i residents, Lingle was nominated as the Republican candidate for the office of Governor of Hawai?i. As Hawai?i Democrats nominated incumbent Lieutenant Governor Mazie K. Hirono, it was one of the few gubernatorial races in which both major candidates were women.
Lingle ran on her “Agenda for New Beginnings,” a campaign platform developed to promote Republican leadership and highlight the perceived failures of the previous forty years of Democratic administration of the state. It also cited differences between Lingle’s message and the previous, more conservative platforms which Hawai?i Republicans had advocated.
Focusing less on her mayoral accomplishments and more on the message of reform, Lingle won the election alongside former state judge James Aiona, who became Lingle’s lieutenant governor.
She took the oath of office upon a Tanakh.
First term as governor
Lingle enjoyed high approval ratings, usually around the 70% range[citation needed]. Lingle spent much of 2004 campaigning for state legislative candidates (the legislature has a Democratic supermajority and she wanted to have enough members to block them from overriding her vetoes) and for President George W. Bush on the “mainland” (the states outside of Hawai?i and Alaska). When some polling late in the election showed Bush tied or narrowly leading Democrat John Kerry, Lingle jumped at the chance to help the Republicans carry her state for the first time since 1984. Vice President Dick Cheney even campaigned in the state. Ultimately, not only did Kerry win the state, but Republicans lost five seats in the state legislature, reducing their presence to near single-digits and causing the Democrats to consider Lingle more vulnerable than they initially expected. In spite of their new confidence, Lingle was re-elected after her 2006 re-election campaign.
As governor, Lingle has created a record surplus of $730 million, coming from the budget’s previous deficit of $250 million.[citation needed]. Many also credit her for leaving Hawaii with a very low unemployment rate[citation needed]. Like all governors, Lingle has signed a number of bills into law, including the Three Strikes Law and Sex Offender Registry Website Law.
In education, she has attempted to divide the State Board of Education into seven local school boards, but failed. One of the more controversial issues Lingle has championed is the practice of sending prisoners to the mainland, as opposed to building a new prison in Hawaii.
2006 gubernatorial election
In 2006, Governor Lingle announced her candidacy for re-election as Governor of Hawaii. In the Democratic Party, many people were speculated to run, but many of them declined, including State Senator Colleen Hanabusa, then Senate President Bobby Bunda, former Congressman Ed Case (who ran for U.S. Senate), U.S. Congressman Neil Abercrombie, and Big Island Mayor Harry Kim. Despite the difficulty of finding an opponent for Lingle, former State Senator Randy Iwase decided to run for Governor. In the primary election he easily defeated Waianae Harbormaster William Aila Jr., and ended up with former Big Island State Senator Malama Solomon as his running mate. Over the course of the campaign, Iwase was considered an underdog who had only spent $340,000, compared to Lingle’s $6 million dollars; in his ads, he constantly attacked Lingle over her relationship with President Bush and yet offered no substantive proposals relating to the state government. Governor Lingle won by the largest margin in state history, 63 percent to 35 percent.
2007 Hawaii Superferry incident
In August 2007 the Hawaii Supreme Court invalidated a Lingle Appointee’s exemption of the Hawaii Superferry from having to undertake an environmental assessment before operating in Hawaii waters. The Superferry is an 80 million dollar high speed ferry. Despite the Court’s ruling, the ferry sailed to Kauai without an environmental assessment. It was met by protesters on surfboards who turned the ferry back to Oahu. Lingle summoned a massive police and Coast Guard response. She came to Kauai to warn protesters of the consequences of interfering the Superferry’s operation and she was shouted down. The next day the assessment was completed. Lingle has vowed to seek a legislative exemption from environmental law on behalf of the Superferry.
2008 Drug Testing Teachers
In 2007 because of the arrests of four teachers for substance abuse, Lingle pushed a drug-testing clause into the teacher’s contract just days before the union was set to vote. The clause caused quite a stir among teachers, mostly because many were torn between their civil right to privacy and a pay raise. The drug testing was approved by a margin of 62% to 38%; still the issue met more obstacles. The ACLU started preparing a class action lawsuit against Lingle, while the BOE was involved in a fight over the funding of drug testing. Apparently, after Lingle pushed through the clause, she also expected the Board of Education to pay for it. The BOE voted it down 7-0, stating, “It’s just not a priority.” Lingle has since threatened to withdraw the pay raises many teachers in Hawaii are getting, while the ACLU has continually stated Lingle is using fear tactics.
Family life
Lingle was married and divorced twice. She married her first husband, Charles Lingle, while in college, in 1972. Upon leaving California for Hawai?i, she divorced him in 1975 but kept the Lingle name. During her term as mayor of Maui County, Lingle divorced her second husband, Maui attorney William Crockett, to whom she was married from 1986 to 1997. Lingle is currently single and does not have any children.
Her uncle founded the Cutter Ford car dealerships in Hawai?i.
Gloria Steinem, is not a feminist but a left wing ideologue. Feminism for her and others in her camp are only sort of pro women, only those who accept her political left wing ideology are deemed to have rights. The rest; barefoot and pregnant is what they expect, or bibles and guns, which wouldn’t go over too well in her cocktail circuit.
National Inquirer has a story of an affair of Palin with her husbands business partner. They were right with Sen. whats his name?
Palin at church Assembly of God
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4LjsfWbZLA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQq4b5IQhq8&feature=related
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Will Palin become a 2 week wonder and bring down McCain with her? The left won’t concede willingly!
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Don’t overestimate her either. The constant fawning and elevating her to greatness by Republicans is almost as obnoxious as what’s coming from obama followers. I don’t hear such breathless talk about McCain on the GOP side and he’s a war hero who was a POW. Palin is ok but she isn’t the second coming.
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2nd time today I agree with laura.
Lets not lose sight that the election is between McCain and Obama. She is bringing out his weaknesses though.
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Thanks for the info on Gov. Lingle.
Ted, Alaska has a Permanent Fund that invests oil taxes for the benefit of Alaska residents. I THINK it is is modelled after Norway. The $1200 checks are the “dividends” from the Permanent Fund – and probably why the Club for Growth does not criticize that. Palin did introduce a local sales tax increase during her term as mayor of Wasilla, and certainly sounds like an economic populist, which makes the Club for Growth endorsement highly suspect.
From my neutral perch, I see Palin as a huge asset for McCain, especially after watching her in the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial debate on C-Span last night. Watch PA, OH, MI, WI shift, and who knows where else. (I just encountered a MyBO supporter who is attacking Palin because she doesn’t have a graduate degree!)
Biden’s appearance on Meet the Press probably has a lot of people wondering why Biden isn’t at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Also on C-Span last night was a sample of foreign reporting on the RNConvention. Japan, China, France, Al-Jazeera, Russia, and Iran. Russia and Iran coverage was very illuminating propaganda.
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