WHAT’S NEXT FOR PALIN? If McCain and the governor lose the election, it’s anybody’s guess. “‘Every time she goes in for a rally she's meeting the local chairmen, the state chairmen,’ said Gary Bauer, the social conservative leader whose own visibility increased after his failed 2000 presidential bid. ‘She'll have a tremendous Rolodex that will be an asset to her no matter what she decides to do,’” reports the Chicago Tribune.
In an interview Wednesday with ABC News, Palin said she will not leave the national stage if the Republican ticket loses. "I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that ... that would ... bring this whole ... I'm not doing this for naught," Palin said.
Later, aboard the Palin campaign plane, Tucker Eskew, a campaign adviser, said " ‘ABC News made a mistake’ in characterizing Palin's comments as a hint that she would consider running in 2012 -- an interpretation shared by other news organizations, such as CNN, which reported on her remarks as having stunned the McCain campaign,” reports The Trail blog of the Washington Post. That interpretation appeared in an ABCNews.com headline that was later changed.
Also:
Palin camp seeks to undo ABC error (Fox News blog)
Win or lose, Palin seen by many as future of GOP (N.Y. Times)
Sarah the Diva, looking past John the Runner-Up (Washington Post)
PALIN AS VP WOULD FIT RIGHT INTO LIBERAL ENCLAVE: John McCain, defending Sarah Palin recently, said Washington's Georgetown “elites” wouldn’t want her at their cocktail parties. A Politico piece today says she might fit right into the D.C. neighborhood of mostly well-educated Democrats.
“Right now at our stage in life, with a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old, most of our parties revolve around chicken nuggets and mac and cheese,” says George Stephanopoulos, Georgetown resident, former Clinton adviser and the host of ABC’s “This Week.”
Cherie Cannon moved to Georgetown so her journalist husband could work with then-Washington Post publisher Phil Graham. “Now,” she says, “Georgetown is filled with young people; there are babies upon babies on every block.”
NATIVE CORPORATIONS IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT STEVENS: “Louis A. Thompson, 72, who has run one of the corporations, Kavilco Inc., for 36 years, said the companies had grown into sophisticated operations that could stand on their own. ‘Senator Stevens was very helpful early on and not just to Alaska Native corporations, to all Alaskans,’ he said. ‘But times have changed,’ ” The New York Times reports. Still, there have been questions about subcontracting relationships between some of the corporations and non-Native-managed companies, and a federal audit is under way.
PALIN EFFIGY REMOVED: Chad Michael Morrisette, who hung a life-size mannequin of Palin from a noose at his home, said Wednesday evening he decided to remove the Halloween decoration after meeting with the mayor of West Hollywood, the L.A. Times reports.
OLD WASILLA ABORTION FIGHT REVISITED: The Bush administration appears ready to expand the reach of a law giving private health clinics, hospitals and insurance companies the right to refuse to perform or assist in abortion or sterilization procedures on moral or religious grounds, according to the Editorial Observer blog of The New York Times. The law has its roots in an early ’90s Wasilla abortion fight that, coincidentally, involved Sarah Palin’s church and her former obstetrician.
TRACK PALIN GETS PROMOTION IN IRAQ: The governor’s son has been promoted from driver to “air guard” in the Stryker vehicle, reports the Washington Whispers blog of U.S. News & World Report.
From all reports, Track Palin is an unassuming and humble fellow and very quiet about the whole "mom running for vice president" thing. "He's a good kid and a good soldier and he'd like to remain anonymous," says Col. Burt Thompson, who commands the Alaska-based 25th Infantry Division's 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, known as the "Arctic Wolves."
ROCK OUT OF WASILLA: Wasilla-born rock band Portugal. The Man, currently on tour in the Eastern U.S., tells the Patriot-Ledger in Quincy, Mass., that they’re no fans of their hometown’s former mayor but can’t escape the Sarah Palin buzz.
For a band trying to capitalize on a significant indie/experimental rock buzz of its own accord, that can be frustrating. “It has been somewhat disappointing,” front man John Gourley said. “I mean, what a coincidence, and how amazingly random. We certainly don’t mind the press, but it’s not as though we planned this. And it’s also been negative in that we’d hate to benefit off of someone like that anyway.”
The band has a new album, “Censored Colors.” An essay posted at MTV and on the band’s Web site recounts Gourley and his friends’ battle with then-Mayor Palin and the Wasilla City Council for a new skate park.
DEFENDING KETCHIKAN: Dave Kiffer, new mayor of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, writes in a Newsweek essay this week that Ketchikan doesn’t deserve the “Nowhere” tag.
Then Sarah Palin became John McCain's vice presidential nominee, and there on national television was our governor bragging (not quite truthfully) about how she stopped the Bridge to Nowhere. Just like that, we were back on the front page, exhibit A in Palin's reformist resume.
We settled in for a second round of public lashing. Sure, we had been unhappy last spring when the governor shelved our project by sending press releases to the media and not telling us to our face. But we were really disappointed when she called us "that community" on national television, in the same tone of voice that Bill Clinton had once used to describe "that woman."
A SIDE OF PALIN WE NEVER SAW: Former ADN reporter and Anchorage Press editor Robert Meyerowitz, in an interview with public radio station KUAC in Fairbanks that is posted here, says the lack of sophistication Palin has demonstrated in her VP campaign was not apparent in Alaska when she became governor.
SOME PALIN FANS HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOR: Michelle Singletary, who writes the personal finance column “The Color of Money” for the Washington Post and is a regular interviewee on National Public Radio, writes in the Post today that she got her greatest reader response ever when in her weekly e-letter she “poked fun at” the Republicans’ $150,000 fashion bill for the Palin family.
I asked people what they thought of the Palin clothing flack. To my dismay, what I got were personal attacks that included profanity in some cases. One reader even suggested that I should be damned by God. As if God has nothing better to do than damn me to hell for criticizing the wardrobe expenditures for Palin. Some readers, including a college professor, declared they would never read the e-letter or the Post again, a paper that runs commentary from all political sides.
VALLEY FOLKS RAISE STINK OVER COMPOST: “Piles of what would politely be called fertilizer” have been dumped next to an espresso stand in Palmer by an Anchorage landscaping company, reports the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. The company was planning to move the pile after complaints were made to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
NATURAL GAS FOR HOMER? Homer has long dreamed of getting access to natural gas. The Homer Tribune reports that hopes are high as residents wait for results from summer drilling at the North Fork Road site.
JUNEAU FISH AND GAME COMMITTEE FALLS APART: Nine of 15 members quit the committee this week, claiming it favors charter fishing over sportfishing, reports the Juneau Empire. Local committees across the state are intended to give feedback to the state boards of fisheries and game.
NO MONEY FOR NEW HOMER CITY HALL: The Homer City Council has set aside twin dreams of a new city hall and a bigger, unified UAA Kachemak Bay Campus, reports the Homer Tribune.
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM RECENT NEWSREADERS:
Democrats join defense of Palin, natural gas pipeline (Juneau Empire)
Palin spends $50G on remodel jobs (Boston Herald)
Tragic flaw: John McCain, man (Washington Post Writers Group)
Alaska on “The Electoral Map” (N.Y. Times cartoon)
Palin favors friends and donors (L.A. Times)
Palin’s path to the nomination (The New Yorker)
Find previous Newsreader columns here.
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