http://www.santamonicadispatch.com/?p=572

THis is the Real Sarah Palin

excerpts on how sarah ran government"

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than two 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 six years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same six 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.

part 2:
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 seven years 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 ecommended 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.

CNN's Jack Cafferty, a bona-fide Obama sycophant and news hack, recently suggested that McCain "should consider replacing Palin." This after making his case that she's a "weak" candidate.

Let's think about this for a moment.

Why would an Obama supporter insist that an "unqualified" VP candidate on the opposing ticket withdraw? Wouldn't a weak candidate IMPROVE Obama's election chances?

It's rather obvious that Cafferty is absolutely terrified of the game-changing nature Palin's introduction has had on the race and the damage she'll do to Obama. Liberals are literally wetting their pants on live TV. The shrillness is through the roof. Hysterical. This irrational behavior, more than anything else, tells me that McCain's pick was an absolutely BRILLIANT strategy. And I truly believe he knew this would occur. I have my differences with McCain, but the man is a genius.

part 3
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’tfire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigationfor abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two 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 complaining in the press about the high salary. 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 andgarnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as 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 a 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.

revealed, nice smear piece on Palin. Obama paying you to post lies again? Unfortunately, it doesn't jibe with the ACTUAL record or the experiences of her constituents, who give her the highest approval rating of any governor in the country. Oddly, your smear piece also doesn't seem to mention her ability to take down corrupt politicians in her own party. You know, things that actually matter to people sick of corrupt politicians. Like Obama, for example.

The media has changed from a news source to a bias tabloid.

Democrat for Palin/McCain

so was the media a new source rather than a biased tabloid when it ran 24/7 7 days a week coverage on Rev Wright, ayers, patriotism crap, etc?

Smear job? This is factual and documented. YOu would have had to know this if Palin was vetted.

Thank you, revealed for your extensive copying from whatever the source is. It seems that OB and Sarah, both have quite some baggage, each of his or of her own. The difference is OB runs for president seat and Sarah is for the vice-president seat. Evidently, you have chosen your own poison. So be it.

Can you provide more information against Obama? I bet you can't. Do you know Why he voted present instead of yes and no? or Why he took house from Rezko when there were so many real estate agents in the market?

Abbreviated from Gerard Baker - Times of London… let’s compare the two candidates:

Obama: Worked his way to the top by cultivating, pandering to and stroking the most powerful interest groups in the all-pervasive Chicago political machine, ensuring his views were aligned with the power brokers there.

Palin: Worked her way to the top by challenging, attacking and actively undermining the Republican party establishment in her native Alaska. She ran against incumbent Republicans as a candidate willing and able to clean the Augean Stables of her state's government.

Political Biography

Obama: A classic, if unusually talented, greasy-pole climber. Held a succession of jobs that constitute the standard route to the top in his party's internal politics: "community organizer", law professor, state senator.

Palin:A woman with a wide range of interests in a well-variegated life. Held a succession of jobs - sports journalist, commercial fisherwoman, state oil and gas commissioner, before entering local politics. A resume that suggests something other than burning political ambition from the cradle but rather the sort of experience that enables her to understand the concerns of most Americans.

Political history

Obama: Elected to statewide office only after a disastrous first run for a congressional seat and after his Republican opponent was exposed in a sexual scandal. Won seat eventually in contest against a candidate who didn't even live in the state.

Palin: Elected to statewide office by challenging a long-serving Republican incumbent governor despite intense opposition from the party.

Executive experience

Obama: Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of his campaign staff and a vast crowd of traveling journalists

Palin:Makes executive decisions every day that affect the lives of 500,000 people in her state, and that impact crucial issues of national economic interest such as the supply and cost of energy to the United States.

Bottom line: Palin as Veep is more qualified than the Dems pick.

--revealed-- Do you live in Alaska or have any real knowledge of Alaska. I believe most of your spewing is none sense.
I lived in Alaska and know Wailla quite well. These projects were not her ideas but were voted on by the residents, OK. Get your facts straight and get off the Obama band wagon.

Dont go there Miss Wa-Silly

Diamond Lou,

Revert back to passages 1, 2, and 3.

This is the real Palin, and noone knows her better than the folks from her home town and state, no like someone blowing smoke in some London crap.

don't take my word for it

KARL ROVE'S BRILLIANT ANALYSIS.....

Republican strategist Karl Rove said on Face The Nation Sunday that he expects presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama to choose a running mate based on political calculations, not the person's readiness for the job.

"I think he's going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice," Rove said. "He's going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he's going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He's not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president."

Rove singled out Virginia governor Tim Kaine, also a Face The Nation guest, as an example of such a pick.

"With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years, he's been able but undistinguished," Rove said. "I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America."

Rove continued: "So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I'm really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States."

Yes, the real problem with Tim Kaine is that he's only been governor of a large state for three years, and before that, he was only the mayor of a mid-size city. This, of course, made him "undistinguished," unprepared for national office, and the very idea of putting him on a national ticket was practically ridiculous.

Thanks, Karl.

edit: facts to ponder:
Alaska 670,000
Virginia 7,643,000
Wasilla, Alaska(palin was mayor) Population in July 2007: 9,780
As of 2007, the city of Richmond,Virginia (kaine was mayor) estimated population is 200,123

Sarah has EXECTUTIVE experience *running a government* (something NONE of the other candidates can actually boast, even John McCain as Governor of Alaska and got there by defeating the *incumbent* Republican Governor, who was definitely part of the “old school” and who WAS very much in the pocket of the big oil companies. We in Alaska wanted change – and we got it in the person of Sarah Palin!

Sarah Palin is everything she looks to be and more. Her approval rating as Governor of Alaska has been as high as 95% and is currently leveled out consistently in the upper 80 percentile throughout the state (and in both parties) - the HIGHEST approval rating of ANY sitting Governor.

Palin and her family have been smeared relentlessly by the hard left and nearly the entire mainstream media this past week. McCain really caught them off guard and they are livid. Obama could have chosen a woman VP, but decided instead to go with a six-term Senator to represent his message of "change." Since the announcement of Palin, the left sensed the damage this would cause and has become completely unhinged. Obama operatives are actively planting smears and talking points on multiple left wing blogs. Anything that terrifies the left is something we need much more of. Palin connects with common, decent people. She's an extremely smart and popular governor who is fiercely independent and fights corruption wherever she sees it.

The real unknown is not Palin, who already has an impressive record of accomplishments. The unknown is Obama. What do we really know about him beyond his rhetoric at the Temple of Zeus? Nothing. He's a man with a murky past who the media purposely protects and promotes. He is an unprincipled elitist whose world views have been shaped by communists, socialists, terrorists, indicted fundraisers, anti-American preachers, and Chicago thugs. But somehow those associations aren't newsworthy. Palin's pregnant daughter! Her husband's 22-year old DUI! Now those are important to our country's future! The press has spent much more effort in the past week digging up dirt on Palin than they ever spent unraveling Obama's past and connections to radical organizations (like ACORN, the masters of voter fraud...going on right now in Milwaukee, in fact) in the past 19 months!

I'll make a prediction. If by some fit of insanity Americans do elect Obama, you will quickly see a case of buyer's remorse unprecedented in our history. I've done a lot of research on Obama and his policies (since the media refuses to) and he is not who people think he is. He will, in lockstep with incompetent fools like Pelosi and Reid, run our wonderful country straight into the ground in short order. Mark my words.

These are all documented. The Alaskan Democratic Opposition Research team had released a 67 page report that had been done on Palin.

Should tell your candidate that he should have made a wise judgment call and vetted his pick so she would not have to be vetted in front of the world.

Guys, please give Revealed some credit for spendimg a lot of time to copy articles from some National Inquirers or such. That effort should not go un-noticed. Revealed drinks her or his own kool-aid not mine or yours. Just do not get too high now, Revealed. Kool-aid is Kool-aid, Reps or Libs!