There is a wealth of information out there about VP candidate Sarah Palin. But the best source I’ve found is a blog called Mudflats. The writer lives in Alaska and has been covering politics from there since well before Palin was chosen. Being close to the action, the blog gives an interesting, local perspective on her.
For example, the writer attended two rallies in Anchorage last Saturday – one, a “Welcome Home” rally and the other for women who reject Palin. You’ve probably already seen the YouTube video of the latter, which is making the rounds. But you may not have seen the photos. Check out this post, which contains pictures of both rallies and compares the crowd sizes between the two. Looks like the anti-Palin rally was the larger of the two.
Anyway – if you are looking for a local perspective on Sarah Palin, Mudflats is the place to go.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Actually – Let’s allow the left wing to continue to talk about Sarah Palin… This only hurts their “great one” O BA MA…
Obama is unable to discuss real issues and the more he is brought back to Sarah Palin… The smaller he looks…
You are entirely right – though… People are not looking to their REAL FUTURES if they are considering a vote for Obama… No matter if they are not in the top 5% of the earnings bracket… By voting for obama – it’s OUR pocketbooks (the lower income and middle class) whose is going to be hit hardest!
J. Scott, I’ve got the same concern for those economic effects the way I do the general economic effects of the massive outsourcing of manufacturing jobs in the US. Unlike the later, however, there are plenty of effective political forces lined up behind blunting the sharp edges of such moves (seriously, when was the last time BRAC did anything in less than a decade?). Further, if any industry needs to get its snout shoved out of the trough for a while, it’s the defense contractor industry.
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Was going to respond with some pity for Terry there, but then I clicked the name. Another sad little liar yelling into the wind.
Vivian, Do you really want to stake the trust people have in you by recommending ‘mudflats’ as a source? See the factcheck.org article at http://tinyurl.com/5dczsl
Anne Kilkenny has had a personal axe to grind against Palin for over a decade.
This is not your usual manner of debating the issues.
There is plenty to talk about without resorting to baseless personal attacks.
MB,
I understand the point. I am more concerned with job preservation at this point in term sof the Virginia economy and not so much job creation. We are entering a cycle where the light at the end of the tunnel is quite foggy to say the least. If these jobs are lost; regardless of our views of how much the defense industry sits at the trough of the federal budget, Virginia will suffer from a revenue perspective and to that end you can throw away any opportunity to have funds for such things as transportation solutions or even early childhood education programs. The defense industry is a vital component to our economy. These are not minimun wage jobs, but highly skilled and technical that pay Virginians quite well. These are the jobs that allow Virginians to actively participate in our econonmy that contribute to sales tax revenues that are generated. These jobs promote home ownership and thus property tax revenue on the local level. There is a greater threat here in play than folks realize.
I can say this because of freinds in Michigan and Ohio who have left those economies to come to ours for real job opportunities. Outside of everything else, whether you think Barack Obama is a real change agent and inspiring or not, if we just look at the economics here I do not see how his plan and how he plans to go about paying for it all by reducing the defense budget and military is worth the wake that will be left behind here in Virginia. I sincerely hope that Jim Webb can help prevent much of the pain, but I fear that the region of Hampton Roads is in for some real problems should Obama win in November.
Those are all fair points, J. Scott. Again though, whatever Obama says, there will be no sudden shuttering of anything in Hampton Roads. I’m an Obama supporter, but I certainly don’t expect him to deliver on everything he lays out in his speeches – no politician ever does. Absent a massive tidalwave of a margin in November, he’ll do just what Clinton did – battle it out with Congress (including members of his own party), and what emerges will be a shadow of campaign promises. That reality doesn’t mean that he’s lying up there – it’s just how things work in a multi-branch government.
I should say, though, that even if we could expect a harder hit economy in Virginia, it’s not nearly as bad a consequence as those we’d get from a McCain presidency. Not even close. The world is bigger than our backyard.
MB,
can you give me an example of how having McCain as president would make things worse and what policy campaign promises do you think will make things better. Please don’t give the McCain is the same as Bush speech and please account for the tax increases we will face to support Obama’s campaign’s promises.
I suppose Obama will meet his campaign promise if he raises taxes he is proclaiming.
One of the few positions to which McCain has generally held tight is a constant drive for further and further deregulation of the markets, no matter the consequences. And hey, look, we’ve got consequences. The utterly ridiculous rhetoric coming out of his mouth in the past few days notwithstanding, he’d keep us sailing in that direction. And that’s something that we just literally cannot afford.
Second, McCain’s approach to foreign policy virtually guarantees more wars – you may have bloody fantasies, but I sure don’t. I have no interest in US – and the rest of the world – suffering the consequences of McCain’s penchant for talking with bombs.
Next, another four Republican years will continue the stacking of the judiciary in a way that I don’t even Warren Burger could have hoped for. Votes on the Supreme Court count for more than votes in Congress, these days (and you can thank Republicans for that).
Finally, McCain will do precisely nothing useful to address the health care situation in the US.
All that said, please don’t mistake this response for any interest in a conversation with you. I know your schtick, and the entertainment value is low.
Warren Burger? No less than FDR is smiling while he spins up to speed there in the crypt.
He wishes he could have stacked the SCOTUS like John McCain would be able to, for the next generation.
The issue that is lost is these “little wars” as some people like to call them; remember Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia during the Clinton years were engaed at the very time both the military and defense were being slashed. There certainly was an impact in the economy here in Virginia and my worry is if it is repeated it will be compounded by the very issues raised about the lending and credit crisis.
Vivian is a firm believer that all politics is local, well dam it so are jobs. If we do not keep our own backyard secure who is gonna come in a bail us out; the government?
I learned something also interesting today and thats that inside the Obama campaign there is talk of shelving the interst deduction on mortgages. These presents a greater question; Obama may certainly be telling us he will be cutting the taxes of 95% in terms of rates, but what happens when he has many of the “deductions” removed elsewhere in the tax code? If he cuts the tax rate for those in the middel class, you can bet Congress will try to remove the child tax credit or child care expense/education benefit or other areas like that to make up some of the lost tax revenues while presenting the middle class with a base line cut. No one wants to get into it when they say “we need to take a look at the tax code” or “simplify” the code. That usually means alot of these deductions will be going away.
There is a video out of Obama talking about what he will do with defense. Many are in favor of such things on the left. They think the defense spending is indefensible and would rather take htat money and fund other interests. But we can’t cut defense jobs (NOVA/Hampton Roads), cut energy related jobs lost transitioning to renewables, wean ourselves off of coal and watch those jobs go as well (SW VA), cut the military (Norfolk) and end the influence of consultants and lobbyists (NOVA) at the same time. Noble. But the reality is your talking about a net loss of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs from the Virginia economy.
J. Scott, while I think that the home mortgage deduction is an entirely legitimate subject for debate, the political reality is that it’s not going *anywhere*. Not without some massive overhaul of the tax code that makes it mostly a wash.
I don’t think you saw any video of anyone of consequence saying that defense spending is, per se, indefensible. Defense is a necessity, and we all want to make sure that those who are fulfilling that role are supported 110% (I come from a family that has served in the military for generations upon generations). But I don’t think we need to “support” it 200, 500, or 1500%, after markups. If you’re actually involved in the industry (or are close to anyone in it), you know just as well as I the amount of obscene fraud, waste, and abuse inherent in the system. I am foursquare behind cutting that out, even if it results in fewer jobs in Virginia.
That said, I understand the defense of the backyard on your part. We just have different backyards, I think. The point, however, is that under Obama, both of them will be far better off than under McCain. And not just for you and me, the guys typing right now, but for our grandchildren. Wind energy jobs will be better for them than mining jobs. High skill jobs for necessary programs are more reliable than jobs producing unwanted defense products. Progress isn’t easy, but it’s important.
(And don’t worry about NoVa and its consultants, lobbyists, and lawyers. We’ll be just fine. I promise.)
Oh BM, yet again, thanks for not answering the question. Very telling on your part. Just more of the same elitist spew, blah, blah, blah. Trust me, I certainly wasn’t trying to strike a conversation. go ahead, I’m waiting for your fancy put down!
Confirming the ill effects of Palin rhetoric, we are seeing an increasing number of palinitis cases:
More and more people are complaining of symptoms like nausea, headache, irritability and dysphoria (as opposed to euphoria). The symptoms are reported to occur when these individuals are exposed to speeches and television appearances of Gov. Sarah Palin. Subsequently, the condition has been coined ‘Palinitis’.
Extended exposure to Gov. Palin’s voice and words causes more severe symptoms and has thus been named ‘palinitis gravis’. In addition to the aforementioned undesirable sensations and feelings, sufferers of the severe form of palinitis have reported ringing in the ears, loss of the ability to think coherently and talking ‘gibberish’, nightmares of turmoil and the downfall of ‘our great nation’.