关于共和党副总统候选人佩林的一封家乡来信

AboutSarah Palin: A Letter From Anne Kilkenny

By admin on Sep 3, 2008 in John McCain

What follows is an open letter written by a resident of Wasilla, Alaskanamed Anne Kikenny.

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on afirst-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father wasmy child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis withher parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during heradministration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl inmiddle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for hercan’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kepther most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for sevenmonths. She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby.There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby. She is energetic andhardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there”and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband works aunion job on the North Slope for BP and is achampion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after becauseof the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish forsalmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so insummer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source ofincome. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters. She’s smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (atthe time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of runningthis small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed tohire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herselfinto some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recallcampaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 yearsas Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. Duringthose same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%.This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressiveproperty taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. Thetax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way morethan they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’tenough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed,too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over$22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Wasit the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plantthat the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus forconstruction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build ona piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that wasstill in litigation 7 yrs later–to the delight of the lawyers involved! Thesports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit,not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for$5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without anyborrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecoratedmore than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. Asan oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather thaninvest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent andincrease efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus toevery individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommendedthat the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposeddistribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow forneeds.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideasorcompromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or herstaff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of whoproposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected CityLibrarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the librarysome books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense ofthe City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, soPalin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought herattempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, sowhat did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of theexperienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired orelevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependenton her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal–loyal to thepoint of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she hasacknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (seebelow).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her,she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarityabout it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him,but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him wasbecause he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Underinvestigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozencontacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she laterfired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace theman she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexualharassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help.The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing herto voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her firsttargets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal CityAdministrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by thisruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anythingpublicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got thebest, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the fewjobs not in Juneauand one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Withinmonths of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining inthe press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: thecommute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member ofthis Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engagedin unethical behavior on the job.

In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be politicalsuicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the jobshe hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethicsand as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit,exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from SenatorTed Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publiclyhumiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clearthat it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines,then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling thempork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of theseprojects–which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of theirimportance–but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leadershate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Othermembers of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.

They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition andpredatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly storiescirculated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard onthe high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respectedmember of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused toendorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package oflegislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beatof her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked toglobal warming. Shecampaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would haveeither a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up inthe courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She haspushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to listpolar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be aheartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions ofAmericans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there’sa lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT

•“Hockey mom”: true for a few years
•“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, notsince
•“NRA supporter”: absolutely true
•social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that wouldhave denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did thisbecause it was unconsitutional).
•pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promoteit.
•“Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declinedto call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
•“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla hasresidents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other thanCity Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed helpof a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
•political maverick: not at all
•gutsy: absolutely!
•open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explainingactions.
•has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
•”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores anddisconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
•fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
•pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without asewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20thcentury standards.
•pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden onresidents
•pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government inWasilla’s history.
•pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make herpro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she ispro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. Iam a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in theschools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to myparticipation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen whengood people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have goneto as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. Idon’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she isimmensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in thefuture: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or sopeople who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt atcensorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to sayanything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase inspending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) frominformation supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can’trecall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for populationincreases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info outof City Hall–they are swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for thepopulation of Wasilla, ranging from my “about 5,000″, up to 9,000. The dayPalin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the currentpopulation is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I haveused about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city wasgrowing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

http://www.thepresidentialcandidates.us/about-sarah-palin-a-letter-from-anne-kilkenny/741/