Sarah Palin in Newsweek
On Drugs:
Rejected making Wasilla bars close earlier than 5 AM
At the Republican Convention, Sarah Palin talked about her hometown as if it were a place painted by Norman Rockwell: "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty & sincerity & dignity." She talked about conservative values and fiscal discipline
So you might imagine that Wasilla, Alaska, is a tight-knit community with a general store, cozy cabins and a quaint bar where everyone knows your name, all centered around a town square with a steepled church and a frozen pond.
But barely anything like that exists in Wasilla. You certainly can have a great time swigging beer in two bars that are allowed to stay open until 5 AM. It was Mayor Palin who rejected attempts to make them close earlier. (If Palin had completely had her
way, in fact, you could have sidled up to the bar with a gun.)
For all that, Wasilla is not a bad place. Rather, it's an unexceptional, gritty town, bisected by a four-lane highway where used-car lots sit next to fast-food joints next to pawn shops.
Source: Amanda Coyne in Newsweek
Sep 22, 2008
On Gun Control:
Hunts as much as she can; freezer-full of wild game
Like many Alaskans, Gov. Sarah Palin is a lifelong hunter and strong proponent of Second Amendment rights. A longtime member of the National Rifle Association, she told USA Today when she was running for governor as a
Republican in 2006 that "We hunt as much as we can, and I'm proud to say our freezer is full of wild game we harvested here in Alaska." Palin's favorite food? "Moose stew after a day of snowmachining," she said.
Source: Q&A with Newsweek's Brian Braiker
Aug 29, 2008
On Homeland Security:
Let veterans apply skills to skip state certification
Palin addressed CPAC with a speech that dealt with the plight of veterans, delicately weaving in her own role as the mother of a soldier: "America hands over her sons and her daughters in service with the promise that they're going to be taken care of.
Our troops are promised that a grateful nation will spare no expense to patch them up and bring them back to health when wounded," Palin said. "Well we, their mothers and their fathers and their husbands and their wives, we're here to collect on the
promises made."She noted the lack of services for veterans and said the best way to honor them is by helping them.
She floated a policy idea--using the skills veterans have learned in the military, say computer programming, and sparing them
the requirement to get some kind of certification when, in fact, they already have the necessary skills. She discussed making veterans benefits permanent and less subject to the whims of Congress.
Source: Newsweek on 2015 Conservative Political Action Conf.
Feb 27, 2015
On Jobs:
Closed last factory in Wasilla in 2007
Palin's nostalgia for small farms & factories can't be tied to Wasilla. Until recently, the only thing that resembled a factory in the area was a cooperative called Mat-Maid dairy. After 40 years of churning milk, cream and yogurt, the place was shuttere
in 2007-by Governor Palin's handpicked board in charge of running the dairy. It's now a self-storage unit. There's still a little vegetable and hay farming done in Wasilla, but much of the agricultural land has given way to strip malls & subdivisions.
Source: Amanda Coyne in Newsweek
Sep 22, 2008
On Principles & Values:
Officiated a marriage in the aisle of Wal-Mart
Much of Wasilla has given way to strip malls & subdivisions. Palin knows this is the heart of her town. In 1999, when Wal-Mart was the place to shop in Wasilla, a couple who worked there decided to get married in the aisles of the store.
Shoppers convened, and tour-bus passengers stopped and gawked. Palin, who was then mayor of the 5,000 or so residents of the town, officiated. Later, she told a reporter that she had to hold back tears. "It was so sweet," she said. "It was so Wasilla."
Source: Amanda Coyne in Newsweek
Sep 22, 2008
On War & Peace:
Yes, we can kill our way to victory in the Mideast
One barb [in Palin's CPAC speech] got a lot of attention--her riposte to an Obama spokesperson who said the U.S. couldn't kill its way to victory in the Mideast. "Oh, the naive Obama State Department. They say we can't kill our way out of war.
Really? Tell that to the Nazis. Oh wait, you can't. They're dead. We killed 'em," Palin said.
She also pointedly noted: "Did we actually win in Iraq and Afghanistan before we waved the white flag? The jury is still out."
Of course, Palin is still Palin. At one point she said, "The Middle East is a tinderbox, and it is coming apart at the seams," which isn't wrong but is a slightly convoluted way of thinking about how those Old Tyme boxes actually worked.
Source: Newsweek on 2015 Conservative Political Action Conf.
Feb 27, 2015
Page last updated: Sep 29, 2024