The [Palin] Papers

A roundup about our potential hockey mom-in-chief.

The Palin Agenda
* Faith-based mukluk distribution program.

* Plan to convert Detroit's auto industry to snowmobile production.

* Will drop the first puck instead of throwing out first ball.

* Stanley Cup to be housed in the White House Roosevelt Room.

* Supports transnational bison milk pipeline.

* Supports annexation of Canada to complete northern portion of Manifest Destiny.

* Supports subsidies to revive the Eskimo Pie industry.

* Alaska replaces Texas as the state you should not mess with.

* Just added: Free condoms for high school students!

Are You Experienced?
The majority of the punditry is attacking John McCain for attacking Barack Obama's lack of experience and then naming Palin to the ticket. But that cuts both ways: Now Dems who argued that experience didn't matter have suddenly discovered it does when it comes to vice president nominees. It would be a blast to watch everybody tie themselves in knots if it wasn't so depressing.

OBAMA SUPPORTER: She's in her first term as governor and before that was only a small-town mayor!

MCCAIN SUPPORTER: He's in his first term as senator and before that was only in the Illinois legislature!

OBAMA SUPPORTER: It's not about experience, it's about judgement!

MCCAIN SUPPORTER: Exactly! Er, I mean, she's had executive experience!

OBAMA SUPPORTER: But what about McCain, he's never been in charge of anything!

MCCAIN SUPPORTER: Neither has Obama!

OBAMA SUPPORTER: He's been in charge of his campaign!

MCCAIN SUPPORTER: And McCain hasn't been in charge of his?

OBAMA SUPPORTER: So, wait, which one of us is arguing that experience doesn't matter?

MCCAIN SUPPORTER: I don't even remember anymore.

Huffington Pose
"Palin is notable for what she doesn't bring: a track record," The Good and Great Arianna writes. "If McCain had picked any of the far more experienced candidates on his short list, they would have come fully equipped with a long paper trail implicating them in the horror show that is the Republican Party of the last eight years."

Funny, I remember Obama supporters arguing that it was a good thing that their man hadn't yet assembled a record in the Senate, lest he be attacked for stands he was actually forced to take in public.

Tale of the Tape
Some parts of this are offensive - "Hussein" et. al. - but it's still worth a quick gander.

The Beachwood Alaska Bureau
Now seems like a good time to remind readers of our I Lived In Alaska series.

Talking Points
* "Obama Says Palin's Family Is 'Off Limits'."

And he'll keep saying it as often as he has to!

* "While she was mayor, Palin slimmed the size of Wasilla's government . . . "

From five employees to four!

" . . . and cut property taxes."

From $2 a month to $1.50!

Palin Props
When the Palin pick was first announced, my reaction was: Obama just won the election. But since then I've come around to the idea that she's a brilliant choice if the McCain campaign emphasizes that it will have a working mom in the White House. That's powerful stuff. And no matter what you think about McCain, it's hard to argue now that the McCain-Palin ticket is "out of touch."

Palin, in fact, might be the most ordinary person ever on a presidential ticket. Not in terms of ideology, where I think I'm safe in saying she is to the right of most Americans. And the Palins aren't exactly hurting economically, though they aren't rich either. But they are closer to the ground than any other nominee families I can think of.

Now, I happen to believe in experience. It's silly not to. Think about your own life and your own job. Think about why you are mad that Jane Hirt is the Tribune's new managing editor, or your concerns for Cubs and White Sox players who may be about to experience their first playoff games. Experience matters, and those who say it doesn't were always just rationalizing their support of Obama's campaign.

Experience isn't everything, of course; and it's not an inherently good value. But it was always a laugh when Obamaphiles said "Look at George W. Bush!"

Yes, look at him. Doesn't he prove my point?

Or when they said, "Look at Don Rumsfeld!"

Yes, look at him. His track record told you everything you needed to know about him.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

And the idea that it's just simply impossible for one person to be better prepared for the presidency than another because the job is so unique - propagated once again here - is pure nonsense. I'm quite certain Al Gore had a much better idea of how to be an effective president given his eight years as veep than he did prior to 1992 when he was still just a United States senator.

*

Meanwhile, Eric Zorn disqualifies anyone from Alaska from a national ticket because the state's "population of about 670,000 is slightly less than the population of north suburban Lake County."

Zorn fails to note that the population of Delaware is 853,476. Maybe by his formulation that just gets Joe Biden in under the wire. Or is it Biden's experience that qualifies him?

Something About Sarah
The difference between Palin and Obama is that she's Dave Kovic and he's Bill McKay.

*

Or you could say that Palin is Alaska's Peter Fitzgerald, Obama's predecessor who actually took on corruption (and mostly in his own party) and famously fought against earmarks for Illinois projects just because they were in Illinois, in sharp contrast to Obama on both counts.

*

Maybe you could say Sarah Palin hasn't had the hope boiled out of her yet.

*

Sure she supported Pat Buchanan, but is that any worse than supporting Dorothy Tillman?

Phony Rhetoric
Michael Kinsley: "The whole 'experience' debate is silly. Under our system of government, there is only one job that gives you both executive and foreign-policy experience, and that's the one McCain and Obama are running for. Nevertheless, it's a hardy perennial: If your opponent is a governor, you accuse him or her of lacking foreign-policy experience. If he or she is a member of Congress, you say this person has never run anything. And if, by any chance, your opponent has done both, you say that he or she is a 'professional politician.' When Republicans aren't complaining about someone's lack of experience, they are calling for term limits."

Kinsley is only half-right. The experience rhetoric is silly, but the question itself is wholly relevant.

The Record
Our very own Stephanie B. Goldberg has been doing the research. These are her findings:

* Within Alaska, she is not seen as a conservative but as a populist. Most of her legislative gains have come by getting the backing of Democrats, who were the ones pushing for the ethics code that she now takes credit for.

* The NEA likes her because she stabilized educational funding and raised funding levels. Apparently, Alaska provides very little in the way of special ed and head start-type programs and she has shown no interest in touching that issue.

* She has been described as a creationist but she is not in favor of incorporating it into the curriculum. She is in favor of discussing it.

* I don't know if she's so much a reformer as someone who consistently bites the hand that feeds her, so to speak, to advance her own career. In Wasilla, she was mentored by the mayor and ended up running against him and defeating him. The Republican party put her on an energy board and she did indeed blow the whistle on a member but it appears to me, at any rate, to be motivated more by a desire to wound the Republican Party and take over its leadership.

* Her solution to health care in Alaska is to remove barriers to competition and eliminate something called a certificate of need.

* Besides Troopergate, there are two other scandals or screw-ups that haven't really been investigated. As Mayor of Wasilla, she exercised eminent domain to acquire property for a sports complex, which resulted in a successful lawsuit against the village and a $1.5 million judgment. There's also some funny business with the state dairy, where she resisted closing it and fired everyonne who wanted to close it, and poured more money into it and ended up closing it. Josh Marshall suggests it was a sweetheart deal for a friend.

* The husband appears to function as her capo and is entangled in govt matters while remaining a BP employee.

* Strong pattern of telling outright lies, as in claiming that only a tiny footprint is involved in ANWR drilling, that she opposed the bridge to nowhere, that scientific research backs her decision to oppose listing polar bears as an endangered species.

Fact Check
On that bridge to nowhere.

Photo Gallery
* Wasilla City Hall.

* Downtown Wasilla.

Surprise
Palin was on most lists.

Misfire
"Meanwhile, Obama and Biden seemed a little discombobulated by McCain's surprise decision, sending mixed messages. At first the campaign issued a harsh statement deriding her experience and calling her "more of the same."

One thing Palin is not is more of the same.

Pundit Patrol
Mark Brown: "I don't think you get very far in a political context by arguing that a woman who spent most of her adult life as a homemaker has no experience."

Especially when it's not true. Palin graduated from college 21 years ago. She's held public office for 16 of those years, and in the first five she worked as a TV sports reporter and for the family commercial fishing business.

Mary Mitchell: "But I thought McCain was the fighter, the maverick, the guy who could clean up Washington - at least that is what he has been telling voters for 19 months. Suddenly, he needs a running mate who has held state office for only two years to help him get the job done? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

Just like this column. Isn't this kind of a maverick thing to do?

And of course, Mitchell wheels out Palin's gender as an excuse for racist Democrats to eschew Obama, i.e., reluctant Hillary Clinton supporters are racists. News flash: It's a secret ballot! No one has to know who you vote for.

John Kass: "It's the political reform, stupid!

"The young Alaska Republican put her political career on the line by challenging the corrupt, old Alaskan Republican bulls on their sleazy pay-for-play politics and their use of the public trust to fill the pockets of their friends. She didn't merely talk about abstract change in Washington. She challenged corruption at home, challenged her own party bosses - some of whom are already in prison - at great risk to her political future.

"It is something I've begged and begged Obama to do with the ham-fisted pols in Chicago and Illinois - to not merely talk about change far away, but to take a principled stand even if that stand runs counter to his political interests at home; to challenge the thugs of his own party, to give us a reason to believe he's the man he says he is. He has politely declined.

"In this, Obama obviously has more experience than Palin."

Letters
Sun-Times letter writer Emily Haight of Oak Forest: "Let's face it. If Sarah Palin were male, she would not even have been on a long list of vice presidential possibilities."

Let's face it, if Barack Obama were white he wouldn't be the nominee.

Let's face it, if Joe Biden wasn't white, he wouldn't be on the ticket.

Let's face it, every governor - like every senator - is on each party's long list of vice presidential possibilities.

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