Poll Gives Sarah Palin No Shot in Alaska Senate Race; Again She Blames Media

If only it were so...

KB is right. See here for Nate's take: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/01/palin-v-murkowski-cold-war-heating-up.html

If you haven't been to 538, this guy is the best poll analyst around. More useful closer to an election...

Anyway, it's a shame. Palin is completely unfit for office even in Alaska, much less at the federal level. The crazy part of her recent Ziegler interview in my opinion was when she begged people to ignore the media and look at her record. Well, I have. It's appalling. This person couldn't even run a small town; she hired the first public administrator in Wasilla's history to do it for her while she played politics. She claimed to be a fiscal conservative, but she raised the overall tax burden (while making it more regressive by raising sales taxes and lowering property taxes) and took her previously-debt-free town millions into debt. Yet some things were just too much for the budget: she changed the police department's policy such that rape victims had to pay for their own examinations, saving the city a paltry $10k or so annually. She asked a librarian repeatedly about banning books, ostensibly "just as a hypothetical." Then she fired the librarian a couple months later, because Palin didn't think she "supported" her as mayor. Not sure what kind of support a mayor needs from the local librarian, but in any case Palin rehired her after a public outcry. Her major "accomplishment" was building a sports complex, which was incredibly mismanaged: she had the city move ahead with construction without first getting clear title to the land, which ultimately allowed a real-estate developer to blackmail the city for several times the actual value and caused the project to go drastically over-budget. Then as governor the "fiscal conservative" raised taxes on oil companies and distributed the proceeds to the public in checks. Later she would call Obama a socialist for advocating progressive taxation. The worst part is that these taxes on oil get passed on, not to Alaska consumers, but to consumers in the rest of the nation. So in effect it's just a fund transfer from all of us down south, straight to the wallets of Alaskans. No wonder she's popular up there. Anyway, let's not forget troopergate, if only for the fact that it showed some of her boldest lying: she claimed that no one in her administration had contacted Monegan about it, until a tape showed up of just such a conversation. Then she said she hadn't known about the contact, and never made any contact herself. Then emails from her showed up. It was so sloppy. Let's not forget also that as both mayor and governor she applied bizarre loyalty tests to her underlings, fired competent people and replaced them with old friends with no credentials (the best is the high-school classmate whose "childhood love of cows" earned a spot as head of the AK agriculture admin), and had her husband (who had no official position) in on official closed policy meetings nearly all the time.

Senator Palin???

Why must the Governor abandon her executive role in 2010 for a divisive chance at a senate seat? I think this would be unlikely as she is also up for re-election as Governor in 2010. I think a more probable year for her to run for the Senate, if she so desired, would be 2014 against a Democratic Party incumbent.

palin the fibber

Perhaps I should just call her Sara the liar, as I watched the Couric interview....Sara needs to spend some time studying the Constitution and develop an understanding of it, the amendments and the court decisions which have re-interpreted and/or shed new light on it.

Panel nixes pay raise for Palin

An example of the "news" being reported today about the governor. Trouble is, she wasn't even seeking a raise (proof that she has no plans to run for Congress).

The only opportunity she missed with Katie was she should have shot back "I'll bet everyone would like to know what I read but what do YOU read?", probably the NWS' latest "It WILL be dark tonight" bulletin

Polls!!!

For all of you who hate them polls, have you just forgotten the presidential election polls already. Obama was polled to win and he did. didn't he? I don't like polls but most times they do tell the truth. As for Sarah, I love the lady but she should not blame anyone but herself for her problems. She didn't have to go out there but she did. And the attacks on Obama? All of a sudden that's OK but everything else is not? Get a grip and a life Sarah!!!

An Alaska Perspective -

I hope that reporters and columnists will take some time to consider the serious and ongoing issues in Alaska when bothering to mention our governor. Since she has returned to Alaska most of her time seems to be spent either trying to attract the attention of the media or defending herself in the media. This week she made a waste of her position as governor to issue a press release posted on the state website speaking to her treatment in the media - ridiculous. In the meantime, we have many concerns that are not being addressed effectively, either by our governor, or by national press.

I, for one, am tired of the conjecture about Palin's future at the expense of the people of Alaska. We have for example a crisis in Rural Alaska, and we have a budget proposal from Governor Palin that is based on overly optimistic revenue forecast. We have NO state energy plan to date, though one was promised to us in December. And in requests to the Obama administration for items to consider for Alaska infrastructure, Palin has ignored every community across the state to focus only on projects that will support her pet project of the natrual gas pipeline.

Alaska also has the highest rates of reported forcible rapes, and one of the highest rates of suicide in the country. We just topped out, I believe, for the highest rate of teen pregnancies as well.And no, we don't need to hear the lame jokes about this that may relate to the Palin family.

The coverage of real issues in Alaska has been abysmal, the coverage of Sarah Palin currect performance as governor has been non-existent. Please consider shifting the gaze away from her future political prospects and from her family to the issues that really matter.

Thank you

Oh, and by the way...

There seem to be a lot of digs at Bonnie Erbe for having the "nerve" to express her OWN OPINION in the OPINION section of USN.

Yes, headline news should be objective (not that you'll ever find that here or anywhere else,) but the OPINION section can be as subjective as it wants to be... as it should be.

Maybe some of you are grossly unfamiliar with the "inner workings" of the newspaper???

Here, here!

Thank you, Jonathan of HI.

There is NO discernible reason why anyone should still be talking about Palin at this point.

She was inexperienced, ignorant, hypocritical, grating, and arrogant as a VP candidate. While it sounds like her job as governor was well-received, she obviously lacked the vitals needed to transition to the national stage.

McCain made a BIG mistake here.

Can we move on? Pretty please??

Palin joke

Why are we still talking about Palin? This is a joke.

You sound like Keith Olbermann

It just kills you she's not a phony.