GOP governor before defeating a former Democratic governor to become the first female and youngest governor in state history.
The risk John McCain took last Friday is comparable to the 72-year-old ex-fighter pilot knocking back two shots and flying his F-16 under the Golden Gate Bridge.
McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his co-pilot was the biggest gamble in presidential history. As of now, it is paying off, big-time.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=74137
The sensational selection in Dayton, Ohio, stepped all over the big story from Denver – Barack Obama's powerful address to 85,000 cheering folks in Mile High Stadium, and 35 million nationally, a speech that vaulted him from a 2-point deficit early in the week to an 8-point margin. Barack had never before reached 49 percent against McCain.
As the Democrats were being rudely stepped on, however, Palin ignited an explosion of enthusiasm among conservatives, evangelicals, traditional Catholics, gun owners and right to lifers not seen in decades.
By passing over his friends Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge, and picking Palin, McCain has given himself a fighting chance of winning the White House that, before Friday morning, seemed to be slipping away. Indeed, the bristling reaction on the left testifies to Democratic fears that the choice of Palin could indeed be a game-changer in 2008.
Routed the establishment? She ran Tedd Steven's 527!
Also Alaska is one of the biggest welfare states in the nation. I was going to write this, but someone beat me to it...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080903/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_palin_earmarks
So much for the reformer image that is being promoted by McCain. She's more of the same, with independent-minded Alaskans gobbling up almost nine times the national average in federal pork money. Yes, oil rich Alaska can't figure out how to survive on it's own and needs the most money per person in the US. That's as bad as the freeloading corporate welfare types who always want cuts for everyone else. If she can't figure out how to run an oil rich economy without such lavish handouts, how can she possibly step in on day one to run a Republican damaged budget in Washington?
John McCain touts Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a force in the his battle against earmarks and entrenched power brokers, but under her leadership the state this year asked for almost $300 per person in requests for pet projects from one of McCain's top adversaries: indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
That's more than any other state received, per person, from Congress for the current budget year, and runs counter to the reformer image that Palin and the McCain campaign are pushing. Other states got just $34 worth of local projects per person this year, on average, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based watchdog group.
Also as mayor of PoDunk, Alaska she hired a Washington lobbiest and got over $27 million earmarks for her town...
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=73159
That about $4000 in "welfare" for every man, woman and child in her town of 6700.
Congressmen do this , not governors . So is Marcy a welfare queen too ?
"Welfare" is the term "Conservatives" use to describe pork...
While Marcy does probably represent as many people in her district as Palin does in her entire state, Marcy never ran for VP on the platform of being anti-pork.
Palin is...
I'm sick of hering how she's "a reformer", when in fact she's just the same old Christan conservative with a disfunctional family and hunger for feeding at the public trough. New package - same old ideas...
Took on big oil? Yeah, with a winfall profit tax...
"As Mayor of Wasilla between 1996-2002, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) helped get nearly $27 million in earmarked federal funding. Under her leadership, the town hired a lobbying firm, Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh (now named Hoffman Silver Gilman & Blasco P.C.), and worked with Steven Silver, a partner at the firm and former Chief of Staff for powerful appropriator, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). This is when the earmarked funding started flowing."
http://www.taxpayer.net/resources.php?category=&type=Project&proj_id=128...