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Memo to Snyder: Don’t stop the radical reforms now!Palin in Wasilla: Mastery of governing detail, resistance to insider assimilation
November 24th, 2009 | 
Author:
Dan Calabrese
(Note: I do not plan to write a singular review of Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, but I do plan a series of pieces on different sections of the book – with more emphasis on the information conveyed than on the literary quality. This is the first of those pieces.)
Substance.
You can’t help but notice that just about everyone who is part of the political establishment detests Sarah Palin. And you can’t help but notice that Palin couldn’t care less.
Early in the second chapter of Going Rogue, a chapter titled “Kitchen-Table Politics,” you learn everything you need to know to understand why. This is the way Palin has been wired for a very long time. During her two terms on the Wasilla City Council, followed by two terms as the city’s mayor, she consistently demonstrated a refreshing immunity to the insider mentality that tends to afflict people who serve in government at any level.
Recruited to run for the Council in 1992 by local power broker Nick Carney, Palin was seen as an attractive face who would support the usual way of doing business in Wasilla. She wasn’t.
In one of the first tests of her independence, Palin opposed a proposal touted by Carney, her political patron, to force residents to pay for neighborhood trash pickup rather than hauling their garbage to the dump themselves, as most did, and as Palin says she still does.
Why was this so important to Carney? Because he owned the local garbage truck company. If you’ve never had much exposure to local politics – and this is largely true anywhere you go – it’s a pretty big deal for a young, inexperienced politician (especially a woman) to so blatantly go against the person who recruited you into politics and supported you in your first campaign. You come under tremendous pressure to fall into line. Most cave, right then and there, long before they ever sniff politics at a higher level.
Palin didn’t.
During her terms on the council, she consistently opposed heavy-handed community planning initiatives and burdensome taxes. But she was not anti-government, as she explains:
As a council member, I focused on what I believed to be the key functions of government: infrastructure development, fiscal responsibility and simply being on the side of the people.
She continued this emphasis after being elected mayor in 1998, supporting the building of roads and sewers, which helped to attract stores like Wal-Mart and Fred Meyer to Wasilla for the first time. She also spurred the paving of the city’s airport runway. You read that right: Wasilla’s airport had a gravel runway before Palin worked to get it paved.
It was as Wasilla’s mayor that she encountered the kind of insider resistance to responsive government that would also await her later in Juneau. After she defeated the incumbent mayor, Palin recalls assembling her cabinet for the first time. These were holdovers from the previous mayor. As they sat with their arms folded, glaring at her, she received little enthusiasm as she talked about reviewing budgets and looking for places to cut in order to redirect money to building roads and sewers.
The chief of police flat-out refused to even look for budget savings, beginning a chilly relationship that ultimately resulted in Palin firing him and – get this – being sued by him for sex discrimination. (It took three years, but Palin was vindicated – another harbinger of things to come.)
Among Palin-haters, one of the most popular canards is that she is an airhead, and clearly not capable of dealing with the intricacies of government. As this chapter demonstrates, nothing could be further from the truth.
Palin not only has a keen grasp of the details of governing and budgeting, she also understands the political difficulties inherent in making government responsive. Many of her antagonists at the national level scoffed at the notion that her experience in Wasilla was of any value. Quite the contrary, local government is where a public official’s decisions have the most direct impact on the electorate. It’s where you really have to understand the ins and outs of what you’re doing.
No voting for bills without reading them first.
As I’ve said many times before, and will say again now, I have no idea if Palin ever wants to run for president, and it is not my intention here to either tout her for president or argue for (or against) her qualifications.
But it has become widely accepted conventional wisdom that Palin is nothing more than a populist sloganeer who has no serious grasp of governing substance. Even a fair number of conservative commentators have bought into this notion, and are warning against the support of Palin as the mere embrace of empty style over substance.
Bullshit.
When it comes to the nuts and bolts of governing, Palin is one of the most substantive politicians to arrive on the scene in quite some time. And when it comes to having the intestinal fortitude necessary keep the interests of the people at the top of the agenda, I can’t think of a single person anywhere in politics who is Palin’s equal.
If you disagree with Palin’s philosophy of governing because you are a political liberal, that’s fine. But if you’re an honest person, stop trying to pretend she’s some sort of good-looking moron.
The more you read about Palin’s experience in governing, the more you understand why the national political establishments of both parties hope to smother her political career in its crib. She knows how to govern – better than most of them do, in fact. She just won’t do it the way they do it, and that scares the crap out of them.
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Posted in Dan Calabrese
33 Responses to “Palin in Wasilla: Mastery of governing detail, resistance to insider assimilation”
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Ms Palin had enough political moxie to be elected by Alaskans by the largest majority in its history. When she put a number of Republican good-ol’-boys behind bars she was the Democrats’ darling. They applauded her auctioning the Governor’s jet on eBay. But when she refused to turn Democrat, the gloves came off and the claws unsheathed. Among the elites, there is nothing worse than a plebian aspiring to their hallowed heights – and what’s even worse, is turning down the invitation.
This is exactly the kind of article we need to see about all our political leaders. The garbage story is what I like to hear. I need to hear a lot more but I appreciate you wading through the garbage(pun intended) to shed a little light on things. My contention is that the Dems found out something about her that made them want to destroy her by any means necessary before people got to hear her out.
I am amazed so many Alaskans would want to be known as turncoats. Fair weather friends in a land of extreme weather. I keep looking for the news stories of how those who tried to sabotage Palin in her own state got booted from office. Not holding my breath.
Nice to know someone gets the path she chose was not of least resistance but of true service. Thanks Dan. Let this be a lesson for those who are on the sidelines. Take a look at your local politicians who are so vocal against Palin. What path have they chosen and who’s funding it?
“Nice to know someone gets the path she chose was not of least resistance but of true service”
Yeah, right…like quitting as Governor, so you can have someone else write a book for you, make millions, and go on a book tour.
Many politicians who were involved in obama’s “Rules for Radicals” campaign against Sarah, were rewarded by getting positions serving obama. Take that anyway you wish.
Re: icarus @ 24 November 2009 at 12:45 pm
Thank you for repeating Media Matters’ snarky, vacuous talking-points.
Lefties are a claque of 14-year-old girls.
The political “elite” are afraid that if a truly capable person is given high office…the “plebian” electorate will then require it of all incumbents thereafter.
As a conservative (not a neo-con) I am raising my children with principles that include fulfilling one’s responsibilities (*especially* when one has been entrusted those responsibilities by voters). It both saddens and disgusts me that partisan Republicans and neo-cons are holding up this individual as someone who is a ‘role model’. QUITTING on one’s obligations is not to be upheld as redeeming behavior!
The United States of America does not need any more ‘examples’ of individuals who cannot follow-through with commitments. LEAST of all, in our elected leaders.
And by the way, when Sean Hannity asked Sarah “the” question, she responded that she “has not ruled out” running for president of the United States in 2012. So for Dan or anyone else to faux-naively claim that they “have no idea” what she is planning to do, is disingenuous nonsense.
Here is a very cogent piece on why traditional conservatives ought to be rightly critical of this individual, who claims to be speaking for them. She most definitely is not.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped1119chapmannov19,0,4222240.column
Didn’t the media tell us that after Gov. Palin resigned she is washed up, finished, a non-factor?
Now just a few months later she has the #1 bestseller, now approaching 1 million copies sold, and its only been out a week. Tens of thousands have turned out for her book signings, millions have watched her interviews on TV (0prah’s ratings more than doubled to 14 million, Hannity’s tripled to 4.5 million, 20/20 increased to 8 million) and millions more listened on radio (Limbaugh, Levin, Ingraham, and more) There are now at least 40 books about Palin offered on Amazon. Add to that the probably hundreds of hours of air time, and the thousands of column inches devoted to discussing all things Palin. In October alone she was mentioned in or was the subject of over 13,000 stories, November is bound to top that since Going Rogue was released.
With 0bama’s numbers dropping, several polls show that Palin’s numbers are rising. It will be interesting to see what the polls in late Dec and January show after an all Palin all the time November.
Kelly….Have you ever looked into what she did for the budget and how she cut costs and gave Alaska a surplus in the first 2 years she was Gov??? So let me get this straight…You believe that taking TAX payers money to fight stupid complaints day in and day out made by democrats is the RIGHT thing to do????? Use public money for that??? Then you are gonna give us a piece from a Chicago paper????? Nobama land…As if they will ever say anything negative about him..Have you read his 2 books and how he dispises white people..Those are his own quotes…..It is harder to walk in the path of rightousness than to be led astray…..I hope you will teach your child what is right by the Biblical principles and not what is Earthly…..
For greg:
All that proves is that we are a nation of celebrity-worship. She QUIT on her responsibilities to work the celebrity-circuit.
Hard work and fulfilling one’s commitments are now passe. It’s all about creating a “brand” and hitting the talk-show circuit.
These are not conservative principles or values. They are pop-culture values – shallow and meaningless.
If this woman weighed 300 lbs and was hard to look at (and this is coming from another female), her ‘tour’ would be sparsely attended, and her book-sales minimal. That’s plain reality. We’re a “culture” that embraces ‘images’. At the expense of substance and values.
For David:
For your information, the Chicago Tribune is historically a conservative, Republican-endorsing newspaper. The columnist who wrote the piece on Palin is hardly a liberal. In fact, if you read it (which apparently you did not), you would know that he was praiseworthy of both Goldwater and Reagan. Two traditional conservative leaders (not neo-cons).
You and the rest of the Palin-groupies can attempt to spin yourselves into a tizzy defending her abdication of duties and responsibilities to the people of Alaska who entrusted her with public office all you’d like. But it doesn’t pass this Jesus-following, conservative mother’s standards for ethics and morals. I’m raising my children with the ethic that not all in life is easy – in fact, what is hardest, is nearly always what is RIGHT. Thank you for allowing me to once again point that out.
Kelly, you cannot be both conservative and intellectually dishonest about Sarah Palin.
She “quit” as governor because it was best for the state. It is hard to govern a state when you’re hands are tied behind your back every other day for so-called “ethics” violations. These charges were trumped up against for anything that might stick. I know they were trumped up because she was always exonerated of any wrong doing.
She was being targeted because she was popular. Because of Alaska’s unique laws, she was individually responsible for defending herself. Something she could no longer afford. She did the best thing for the state by stepping aside and letting the state get back to important business.
Sarha Palin cut here states spending every year she was in office and reduced federal earmarks. She’s important because she is real. She is importnat because she is not a typical politician. Instead, she is the person next door. She is a true conservative.
I don’t care if Sarah is our next president or not. I just don’t want a standard issue politician like Obama or Newt. Sarah is not standard and doesn’t govern like it. Instead, she knows when it’s time to quit and move on. I wish more politicians would do the same!
Sometimes the hard right is to walk away.
Matthew:
She can’t “quit and move on” if elected to the highest office in the land. And there is absolutely *nothing* to guarantee that she would not, if the going got too ‘rough’ for her, as she’s already established a shameful precedent for doing so.
I am a conservative (not a neo-con). The only ones here who are being intellectually-dishonest are the ones such as yourself, who are LOWERING standards of accountability and responsibility downward, in favor of hero-worship.
Genuine traditional conservatism stands for RESPONSIBILITY. Not abdication of duty in favor of taking the easy way out. That may be the m.o. of the current neo-con corrupted GOP, but I and others who hold true to conservative principles will not be ‘party’ to it (pun intended).
Both parties like to weed out those who won’t go along to get along at the county level Some of our best senators in Washington were opposed by their state parties. You nearly have to go rogue to serve the interests of you constituents. This book will be passed along to millions, then to millions more. Kinda like Tome Paine’s Common Sense. Remember how that turned out. Be afraid, crooked pols, be very afraid.
Kelly, two things:
1. If you want to deal honestly with the Palin resignation issue – and it’s a legitimate issue to raise – you should deal with the reasons it happened, including the ethics charges and the personal costs borne by Palin and her family. If you simply keep ignoring this, it’s hard to take you seriously.
2. Nothing is more tiresome than hearing people come forth with the whole my-kind-of-conservatism-is-real-conservatism-and-yours-isn’t crap. Who cares? Advocate for the things you believe, but arguing about which label applies to whom is very very silly.
For Dan:
1. Politicians are under the microscope all the time when it comes to being investigated for “ethics charges”. What makes Palin any different? That’s a cop-out.
2. It’s not silly. The rise of neo-conservatism at the expense of traditional conservatism is real, and is a major factor in the demise of the GOP. You can continue to ignore it or label it “silly” all you want. But it’s only to the overall detriment of your party to do so. Why are you afraid of dealing with the differences?
I am most certainly *advocating* for the things I believe. And the things I believe are not represented by the Republican party. Or the neo-cons which control it.
Your m.o. is to lump every single being into one of two camps: liberal (Democrat) or “conservative” (Republican). It is this over-simplistic, binary approach that makes it impossible to take *you* seriously, sir.
[...] posted on the The North Star National, by Dan Calebrese, November 24, [...]
My MO is to label people liberal or conservative? Mine? Do you actually read my columns, seriously?
Not only do I tend not to do this, at one point I actually banned all our other writers from doing it because I was sick of it.
I am turned off by intellectual labels in general, no matter what they are. That’s why your crusade against neocons and in support of “real conservatives” makes me yawn.
What the hell is a real conservative? Is there a list of issue positions you must agree with? Do you agree with every single one? Do you ever wonder about any?
Did you decide one day that you wanted to join a particular camp, then go and get that camp’s list of approved issue positions and memorize them so you could advocate them forever?
I have no idea if you think I’m a “real conservative,” a neocon, a liberal or whatever. And I don’t care. I think what I think. I’m part of the Dan Calabrese ideological movement – the only one of its kind.
Kelly, the President of the United States would only have to worry about fighting ethics violations unless they violated ethics. It would not come at a personal financial cost. In this case, it does due to Alaska’s unique rules and laws.
I don’t worship Sarah Palin. I do find her a breath of fresh air as she is not typical politician who has effectively shrunk government spending in her home state.
I always thought conservatives wanted to shrink government.
BTW – the last time I heard neo-con thrown around so much was from my college profs. How do you define conservatism – I mean besides finishing the job, which you have stated?
Readers,
I disagree with Dan Calabrese. Sarah Palin wanted creationist government, an oxymoron under our Constitution. Ms. Palin fired, manipulated, and tricked with her elected position(s) to attain conservative-religious control, and dominance.
Mr. Calabrese did not do his homework, researching Alaska newspapers, and threatened (Palin attorney) bloggers. He just read the book, “Going Rogue,” and assumed a favorable position for Sarah Palin.
By definition, creationist believe our world is the center of the universe, flat, and 6,000 years old. Will Mr. Calabrese write that, in his next misleading installment?
It be it,
Ronin Kannushi.
Enlighten us. What did Palin do in office – Wasilla or Juneau – to implement creationism as government policy? How were these policies intended to work? How much success did she have?
Always happy to consider new information if you’ve got any.
I am, however, looking for actual facts, not links to other writers making the same charge, but offering no more facts than you are.
Tell me what she actually did to make creationism official policy, and what happened as a result.
Go.
A breath of fresh air. As to her being President in the future; she sure can beat what we have now. As to Martha Stewarts commets, Palin should tell her that she(Stewart) is at least not a felon.
Kelly…You answered your own question…Doing what is right is usually the hardest..She stepped down to avoid having TAX payers money used to fight these stupid complaints..So again using TAX payer money is the RIGHT thing to do????? Yes I did read the article..Palin stands behind the Reagan values 100% and that’s what she is about..It is amazing for someone of the Christian faith not to see that what she did was right..not using other people..Plain and simple….She is like NO other politician out there..You can disagree and that’s fine…Have you checked out her record????? That speaks for itself….
Lance Hillier Sr. writes: “When she put a number of Republican good-ol’-boys behind bars she was the Democrats’ darling.”
This is a persistent myth about Sarah Palin that is not even subject to differing interpretations. I’m an Alaskan and we’ve all followed the corruption trials here very closely. Mrs. Palin was a whistleblower on the oil and gas commission years ago, but she had absolutely nothing to do with the legislators, lobbyists, and government officials convicted or indicted for bribery, etc. All credit goes to an FBI sting operation and corruption probe that began in 2004, IRS investigators,and the Department of Justice lawyers who successfully prosecuted something like 11 cases.
I see several other mischaracterizations of Palin’s accomplishments as governor here, but I’ll only mention a couple. Keep in mind that in the gubernatorial election, she received 48 percent of the vote (114,000 people), less than 25 percent of all Alaska voters. The previous governor was so unpopular that he couldn’t even win his own primary. Any candidate would have beaten him.
As for the ethics charges, the only itemizing her administration ever provided of the famous “crippling” inquiries was shown to have several errors, vague accounting, and contradictory information. Much of the money went to staff time, and was not some additional cost to the state.
Furthermore, out of 14 ethics inquiries, at least 9 cost less than a thousand dollars to resolve, and a few were less than $100. By far the biggest expense was the complaint Palin filed against herself to evade the legislative inquiry that she originally welcomed, until she became VP nominee and needed to fly her partisan flag.
Finally, very few people know that the last ethics complaint by an independent investigator found that it was very likely that she had abused her office in establishing the Alaska Fund Trust, which is nothing more than a slush fund run by her best friend and available to any members of her family and inner circle. But alas, she had just quit, so it was not publicized, nor did the Personnel Board have a chance to conduct a formal review of it. (All of this information is available on the Anchorage Daily News web site.)
Ask yourself if you would fact-check the claims made by any other politician or their supporters. A smart person would. So don’t make the mistake of taking Palin’s account of her record as gospel, particularly as there are plenty of solid reasons to dispute many of her claims. The details are all there; you just have to be willing to look for them.
I keep seeing Dan’s and many other’s comments here in this blog and others on the topic of Palin defending her quitting by saying she did it because of all the ethics charges against her.
When has Sarah Palin ever said that that is why she quit? She didn’t say it in her resignation speech. She didn’t say it in any of her interviews including Oprah. In fact, I can’t recall her ever saying that’s why she resigned.
So why are all of her followers putting words in her mouth and saying that she resigned because she didn’t want to fight all the ethics charges?
Answer, please. Dan probably won’t answer, as he’s famous for just ignoring questions he “doesn’t feel like answering” (code for, he can’t cuz he ain’t honest), but maybe someone else here will?
She has mentioned the ethics charges as intersecting with her decision to leave office repeatedly. Im not sure what rock you have been hiding under not to know that.
Only questions that Dan tends to not answer are gotcha questions or questions you already know the answer to and are blindly repeating because you don’t like the answer already given. This is a fine example of the second.
Don’t think I’m a Calabrese backer either, I have disagreed with Dan plenty, but the man is at least forthright when it comes to debate.
Wow isn’t it pathetic how these liberal haters harp on this ‘abdication’ bullshit while they approved of Senator Obama’s less than 2 years and 142 “present” votes, a person with NO EXPERIENCE running ANYTHING to become president?
Please, don’t tell us about hero worship and quitters.
That Palin is savvy and experienced and principled may be enhanced by her looks is just pure luck.
PS – I hate Obama’s looks so he has NOTHING appealing as far as I’m concerned.
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