One Alaskan's view of Sarah Palin

Which will mean less than a yellowed birch leaf on the first fall winds out of the Matanuska glacier-

I first met Sarah Palin when she was Mayor of the City of Wasilla. At that time, the City had some acreage they wanted to designate as recreational and there was some organized effort to attempt to get the City to recognize that horses (and the recreation involved with their ownership) had some place in city planning. I stood up and said my piece about horses (over several meetings)and the City-which probably sounded totally wacked to everyone else as I realized later. Yes, horse ownership generates a large amount of retail sales to local businesses, but that is not the same as being a revenue source for the city. Consequently, the city ignored horses, and livestock of any kind, in its planning.

You can't buy a sack of sweet feed or a bale of hay today within the city limits-but I digress. This is about one person's evolution only :)

After that, Sarah Palin was off my radar until the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission appointment came to light. Cool I thought, a local person whose politics I did not really know, got tagged for state office. Some months later comes the Randy Ruedrich issue, and SP's eventual resignation from the post-a superfluous one and a drain on the state budget, she said. Ruedrich eventually pays a fine of over ten grand for using state property for political reasons. RR was the GOP party chair here-and he remains in that position today.

When she announced her run for Alaska's highest office, she had an immediate base with people who were sick and tired of "politics as usual" and SP promised "open and transparent" governement and to get rid of the old boy network that bound Juneau tightly. Former Gov. Murkowski had been working with the oil companies to draft an agreement to build the gasline. But he did it behind closed doors and when the proposal came to light it included pretty much giving in to everything and tied the state to a 45 year tax structure. This, and other things Murkowski did (such as tell everyone to screw off and buying a jet for the state despite very strong opposition) paved the way into office for SP.

About this time, the oil companies began reporting record, stupendous profits, and SP trotted out ACES to the legislature. It passed with nearly unanimous support but leaves the state with the highest taxes in the world. Yes, I said the world. When this passed, I was upset since I knew that increased costs to produce and develop would hamper development-and it did.

The next big thing was AGIA. At first, I thought it might work, until I began to learn of the details of the thing. It too, passed with nearly unanimous support in Junean and is the framework that will lead to the open season next year. When the details of this deal came out, I thought-that is never going to work and why are we giving a foreign company half a billion of our state dollars? Now there is a competing project-The Denali Pipeline-different route than TransCanada proposes.

Somewhere along in there, Tom Irwin (Natural Resources Commissioner I think) threatened to pull the Exxon leases at Pt Thomson. Exxon had had the leases for 30 years and done nothing with them. Exxon now has just two leases there and when they attempted to do exploratory drilling on them, Irwin almost goofed that up as well.

Then of course there is Troopergate. My gosh I spent a lot of time online during that period. I don't go to that many online forums, but the amount of ludicrous accusations that made the rounds back then, was astounding. I listened and read and I learned-SP was not who I voted for. I mean, I knew it when the AGIA details came to light-but Troopergate, coupled with a huge increase in government for the state sealed it for me.

Then came the FBI and their corruption investigations. I watched SP turn on people whose support she welcomed previously. As the trials and convictions rolled on, it was like watching our state have a train wreck while SP seemingly gave away the state.

Then she was tapped for the GOP ticket. Wow. No need to go into all that here, but suffice to say that while I was thrilled it was an Alaskan, I was pretty sure SP should not be it. Of course we all know what happened....a great many outsiders think they know what happened too-and I still find myself straightening out screwball misconceptions about Alaska and our way of life here even today, here and there on the net.

Then she quit.

I have to tell you, I was very surprised. Then I became angry. Now I just want her, and her contentious adminstration to be gone. So that we can get some people into Juneau who have the backbone to correct some of these boondoggles-ACES and AGIA and come up with a comprehensive resource development plan that will see Alaska through the next generation or two.

So as the squabbling goes on over who will end up as Lt Governor, I just want her to be gone, off state payroll, go away....take the high school level drama some place else, and take your terrible, stupid spokesperson with you. Go learn how to speak in precise American english and while you are at it, take the time to look beyond your supporters' adulation and have a look at America's place in the world. Read something, hire better advisors, learn to stay on topic and do something about your propensity for verbal diarrhea-you sound ignorant when you cannot make a simple statement and stay on point.

Alaska has suffered enough.

Begone, do something useful and I don't care a bit if you make a pile of money doing it, considering what the msm has done to you. You are not the person I met when you were Mayor, and I don't like you or your behavior any longer. You have done enough harm to Alaska in your two years as our head of state-begone.