More Hatred at a Palin Rally in Johnstown, PA … Are These Your Neighbors? (Video)

Palin’s Staffers Keep Her Away From The News To Avoid Being “Depressed”

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Seems that Sarah Palin can’t handle the truth … during a North Carolina fundraiser last night Gov. Palin told supporters that her campaign staff discourage her from watch the news because they don’t want Palin to be depressed about the election.  Gov. Palin also mentioned how she loves visiting the “pro-America” areas of the country, which begs the question … what does Palin think about the rest of the country who supports Senator Obama for president … ‘anti-America’?

No wonder GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin harbors such hostility toward the mainstream media: her staff imposes limits on her access to it.

During a fundraiser here that raised $800,000 last night, Palin admitted that her aides often dissuade her from tuning into televised coverage of the presidential campaign.

“So North Carolina, I appreciate you all so much, who are here who already get it. You know, maybe I’m preaching to the choir a little bit here, but being here encourages me because I know that I’m not alone and I’ll send this message back to John McCain also. At those times on the campaign trail when sometimes it’s easy to get a little bit discouraged, when, you know, when you happen to turn on the news when your campaign staffers will let you turn on the news,” she said, prompting laughter from the group. “Usually they’re like ‘Oh my gosh, don’t watch. You’re going to, you know, you’re going to get depressed.'”

She added that while she doesn’t always appreciate the way reporters portray the GOP ticket, she’s been bolstered by the prayers of many of the campaign’s backers.

“But yeah, sometimes you do get depressed watching what it is that they’re reporting and the spin and some of the distortion of what our message is and what we stand for. Sometimes that, that gets draining,” she continued. “But it’s at events like these and our rallies that we are so energized and inspired and we know that we are not alone. We feel your strength and we feel the power of prayer, so many of you tell us that you are praying for us and praying for our country and that’s why we so appreciate you being here.”

Giving credit to a higher power for the day’s poll ratings, the Alaska governor told the roughly 500-person audience that things might be changing. “We even saw today, thank the Lord,” she said, looking upwards and raising her fist, “We saw some movement.”

Palin has continued to shun the national print and television journalists who follow her on a daily basis, instead courting local reporters and Republican-affiliated journalists. Today she did short interviews with reporters from Bangor, Me., as well as Greensboro and Raleigh, N.C., along with a 15-minute session with Weekly Standard reporter Fred Barnes.

But Palin paid homage to one new mainstream media star — Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber John McCain repeatedly referred to during Wednesday night’s debate. The Alaska governor mentioned Joe the plumber during both her public rallies yesterday, but she confessed at the fundraiser that even she was sick of mentioning him. Then she proceeded to talk about him at length.

“And I, I begged our speech writers, ‘Don’t make me say ‘Joe the Plumber,’ please, in any speeches.’ And I was asked, ‘Just one time, just at this fund raiser,'” she recounted. “Just make sure people understand that we know what Joe the Plumber was talking about when he was confronting Barack Obama and saying, ‘Wait a minute, aren’t you going to take my money, take my earnings and give it to somebody else who maybe hadn’t worked as hard as I have worked?'”

“What about this reward for strong work ethic, isn’t that what capitalism is all about? Isn’t that what the American economy should be based upon? And so when I mention Joe the Plumber, know that that’s why I do mention it. Because we understand what his concerns were as he spoke to Barack Obama there in that rope line,” she added. “We will be working for Joe the Plumber and working for the small business owners and those who wish to own business, those who have that entrepreneurial spirit and want to grow business and create jobs, hire more people and take care of their families. And with millions of American struggling to sustain a small business right now, I hope that business owners especially across this great nation are paying very, very close attention to the differences in the candidates.”

Palin also made a point of mentioning that she loved to visit the “pro-America” areas of the country, of which North Carolina is one. No word on which states she views as unpatriotic.

An obvious candidate might be California — a state Palin has campaigned in — because, as she told the audience, she and McCain have encountered problems enlisting famous performers in their cause.

“In fact, we were on the bus today, we were making a list of who are some celebrity singers who could come out and help us and gosh, for the life of us, the pickins were slim there,” she said. “Who’s quasi-conservative out there in the celebrity land?”

Palin proceeded to then thank country singers Hank Williams Jr. and Lee Greenwood for appearing on her behalf: Greenwood had belted out “God Bless the USA” at her rally in Bangor, Me., yesterday morning, while Williams sang his “McCain-Palin Tradition” tune in the afternoon in Elon, N.C.

To Avoid Being ‘Depressed,’ Palin Skimps on Campaign News

Palin’s Staffers Keep Her Away From The News To Avoid Being “Depressed”

Readers Write: 12 Stomach-Turning Revelations About Sarah Palin

AlterNet readers respond to the latest evidence of just how bad Sarah Palin is for an office that puts her a heartbeat away from the presidency.  Most of these issues have been covered extensively here on the Sarah Palin Trust Squad, but certainly bear re-examination.

Over the weekend, a perfectly good PR opportunity was ruined for Sarah Palin when the audience at a Philadelphia hockey game booed the Alaska governor during the ceremonial dropping of the puck.

Philly hockey fans have not been the only ones to loudly express their disapproval of Palin in recent weeks. The VP candidate’s spiraling drop in popularity is reflected in polls, in the press and among prominent conservatives — by everyone, that is, but the die-hard fans who still eat up Palin’s forced folksiness at campaign events.

Palin’s drastic loss of support has been driven in large part by the endless revelations about her competence and character that have emerged since her nomination — revelations that can’t be glossed over with frantic winks and “you betchas.”

Last week, AlterNet compiled yet another list of stomach-turning new facts about Palin, ranging from her attempts to undermine trust in Obama with racially tinged rhetoric to her shady history as governor of Alaska.

AlterNet’s readers had a lot to say about the latest evidence of just how bad Sarah Palin is for an office that puts her a heartbeat away from the presidency. We’ve compiled some of the best reader comments below.

Many of our commenters were especially incensed by Palin’s recent character assaults on Barack Obama. Several readers attacked the unfathomably skewed logic used by both Palin and McCain in their attempts to paint Obama as dangerous:

Bgroat makes the point that by McCain and Palin’s standards, McCain would be considered a “terrorist”:

… the fact that McCain has worked with Obama for the past four years puts him in the same boat. In other words, they can’t paint Obama as a terrorist using their logic without simultaneously painting McCain as one, as McCain, through working in the Senate with Obama, has done exactly the same thing they accuse Obama of doing (associating with former member of the Weather Underground Bill Ayers).

Waimea Witch agrees, pointing out that if we judge politicians by their “associates,” we should be deeply concerned that every Washington senator is on the verge of lobbing bombs at federal buildings:

… Senator Robert Byrd is an ex-KKK member, so, does that make every member of the Senate a domestic terrorist by association?

Purple Girl invokes yet another fine illustration of the maxim about stones and glass houses, pointing out that unlike Barack Obama, Sarah Palin actually shares the ideologies of many domestic terrorists:

Sarah has some Ideologies which are akin to some rather notorious Domestic Terrorists — McVeigh (hated U.S. Govt too), Charlie Manson (End Of Dayer, with Death Valley as the “Refuge”), and of course the “Pro Lifers” who thought nothing of Bombing Planned Parenthood Clinics, assassinating MD and Blowing a Pipe bomb Off in the middle of the Atlanta Olympics. Strike 3 Sarah, YOU ARE A BONAFIDE SOCIOPATH. Terrorist Doctrines spew out your mouth, and have been unearthed from your Recent History.

Jest2007 highlights another worrisome aspect of Palin’s history: her connection to the Alaskan Independence Party, a radical organization that calls for Alaska’s succession from the United States:

Maybe this would be a good time to examine Palin’s association with the AIP. The AIP’s creation was inspired by the rabidly violent anti-Americanism of its founding father Joe Vogler. The central purpose of the AIP is to drive Alaska’s secession from the United States. In 1992 Vogler renounced his allegiance to the United States explaining that, “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government.” He cursed the stars and stripes, promising, “I won’t be buried under their damned flag … when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home.” Palin has never denounced Vogler or his detestable anti-Americanism.

dayahka optimistically argues that all the recent revelations about Palin are essentially irrelevant, since soon enough the Alaska governor will disappear from the national spotlight:

Palin will shortly return to Alaska and will probably be recalled, impeached, censured, and/or jailed. But what of the reckless fool who put this scum on the national scene?

But Truthteller is less optimistic, writing that despite Palin’s recent embarrassments, she could still help the Republican ticket pull in a last-minute win:

I’ve been saying for a long time that I believe the fix is in and McCain is going to “win” another stolen election. I just couldn’t see how they could get it close enough to steal before the Palin selection. Now, I can. All the arguments are in place to explain away the theft like they were four years ago — religious voters make last-minute turnout surge, they don’t like talking to exit pollers, or lie to them to f*** with the results.

Tom Degan agrees, pointing out that there’s nothing new about Republicans appealing to their base with incompetent candidates:

Twenty years ago, Poppy Bush nominated a man who had all the substance of a department store mannequin — and yet the GOP won that election! The Democrats have every reason to be cautious. Given the American people’s absolute genius for doing the wrong thing in the voting booth, anything can happen between now and Election Day — and probably will.

Lreal also argues that while Palin’s methods are detestable, they may turn out to be effective:

The history books of the future will show that the Republicans from 1980 to present and probably at least 10 years into the future is a party of dangerous demagoguery. Sarah Palin, and the acceptance by the majority of people in her own party shows that a demagogue mentality can get you far within this sector of the population no matter your true and obvious intellect. This also shows that if you can magnify this demagogue quality, then it can replace intelligence as a matter of accepted quality; and any opponent with a bit of intelligence is a liberal elite, no matter how much more humble they are than the subject.

Spritgirl writes that McCain and Palin are resorting to the usual Republican tactics: using Rovian character assaults to get bad candidates into office:

… the McShame/Failin ticket should not be rewarded for their efforts! These tactics of appealing thru peoples fears are straight out of the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove book, they are despicable and dangerous! Since they cannot run on the issues, they should both just sit down and shut up!!! These are extremely desperate attempts by two very unqualified individuals to get into the Oval Office! Their theory of divide (the body politic) and conquer appeals to those sheeple that want to be led around, and hopefully they will lead themselves and their sheeple off a cliff!Whether or not the McCain campaign’s tactics will be successful in swaying voters, McCain’s desperate gambit to include and keep Palin on the ticket — despite the unending stream of revelations throwing her character into question — has added a terrifying component to the election.

As John Orford writes: “AlterNet is giving me sleep problems … I keep dreaming McCain died and then I can’t get back to sleep.”

12 Stomach-Turning Revelations About Sarah Palin

Rape Victim Assails Palin On Choice

Gov. Palin Scares Suburban Women Voters (Video)

Palin Unaware of Russian Energy Meeting in Alaska

CNNPolitics.com reports that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin had no idea that eight top level Russian energy excutives held important meetings in Alaska this past Monday exploring a joint natural gas pipeline partnership between Alaska and Russia.  These meetings were widely reported in the mainstream media and something we here at the Sarah Palin Truth Squad wrote about on October 14th … and yet Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska??  Perhaps when Gov. Palin reads “any and all” newspapers and magaines which pass by she might want to focus on coverage of her own state.

DOVER, New Hampshire – The campaign of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said the Alaska governor was unaware of a visit by Russian energy officials to Anchorage on Monday.

Eight high-level officials from Gazprom, Russia’s state-controlled energy conglomerate, traveled to Anchorage earlier this week to meet with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and the chief executive of ConocoPhillips to discuss energy projects and the possibility of expanding into new markets.

The meeting on Alaskan soil comes at a time of chilly relations between Russia and the United States following Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August. Both Palin and John McCain have been critical of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on the campaign trail, and Palin raised eyebrows last month in an interview by saying that Putin “rears his head” by dispatching Russian jets into Alaska’s airspace.

Palin has argued that her state’s proximity to Russia, as well as trade missions between Alaska and Russia, have helped give her the foreign policy experience necessary to be Vice President. But the campaign said the governor did not know that the Gazprom delegation was meeting with the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, who is a Palin appointee.

Asked if Palin supports Gazprom doing business in Alaska, an aide to the governor said that “Alaska state officials routinely meet with government representatives from energy companies around the world.”

“Alaska has been, and will remain, very selective about companies with whom they do business,” said Palin spokesperson Tracey Schmitt.

UPDATE: The commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, Tom Irwin, tells CNN he informed Palin’s chief of staff, Mike Nizich, about the meeting before it took place two days ago. Irwin did not know if Nizich had passed the information along to the governor.

Irwin told CNN that he exchanged emails with Palin on Wednesday about energy issues, but that neither of them mentioned the Gazprom meeting in their messages. Despite Palin’s absence from the state, Irwin said “it remains business as normal, and the governor has stayed very involved in state activities and is still leading state government.”

He noted that Monday’s meeting with the Russian officials actually took place in the governor’s conference room in the Atwood Building in Anchorage, which he said is a common practice for large meetings and only requires on-site approval by office staffers.

Irwin stressed that the meeting with the Russian delegation was simply “a presentation of what they do” and that there was no specific pitch made about any business interest in Alaska.

Judging Sarah Palin By The Cover

Sarah Palin Newsweek cover

With its outrage over Palin’s unflattering Newsweek cover photo, Fox News proves that it creates its own reality.  Senior lecturer Sarah Churchwell, writing for the Guardian.co.uk, examines from an international perspective the uproar by the conservative Republicans to the unairbrushed closeup photograph of Gov. Palin.

Last week, Newsweek ran a cover story on Sarah Palin with a close-up of Palin on its cover under the headline “She’s one of the folks (and that’s the problem)”. Republican commentators were quick to protest, but their opposition took a novel turn: they objected not to the explicitly editorialising headline, but to what they argued was an implicitly editorialising photograph. Fox News’s Megyn Kelly complained that it was “ridiculously unfair to her – not the headline, but the photograph”.

The twist was that the photo had not been altered, which, Republican pundits like Andrea Tantaros claimed, was evidence of clear bias on the part of the magazine. “This cover is a clear slap in the face of Sarah Palin,” she told Kelly. “Why? Because it’s unretouched. It highlights every imperfection that every human being has. We’re talking unwanted facial hair, pores, wrinkles.” And why is a news magazine revealing normal human imperfection suddenly objectionable, rather than, you know, normal and human? Because, according to Tantaros, “unlike movie stars and liberal media types, regular ‘folks’ have other concerns besides tweezing, waxing, moisturising, exfoliating, detoxifying and pore tightening. We’re busy.”

You have to admire the sheer effrontery of the proposition that the liberal media has time for grooming but the conservative media does not. Tantaros’s exhaustive catalogue of cosmetic procedures would seem to belie her protestations – if her appearance hadn’t already. This is a woman who is no stranger to the made-up, in every sense of the word. I was reminded of nothing so much as Claude Rains in Casablanca being shocked – shocked! – to find a casino at Rick’s at the same moment that the waiter hands him his winnings. Except that the new twist on the old hypocrisy is that the regular folks who don’t have the time or luxury to spend on superficial appearances are complaining about being confronted with unvarnished reality. Nothing is so unfair as facts in a world of spin, distortion and brazen misrepresentation.

One of my grandmothers would have called this the chickens coming home to roost – except that she was something of a diehard Republican herself. My other grandmother, a liberal elite and damn proud of it, would have said they’ve been hoist with their own petard.

There’s a reason why children learn through rote: repeat something enough, and it will become a habit of thought, and eventually a mode of perception. If you become accustomed to shaping reality to suit your own agenda, then actual reality, when it reappears, will come as an unwelcome shock. And it will always reappear. Facts don’t go away just because they’re as unwanted as facial hair. Tantaros is half right, of course: regular folks don’t object to wrinkles, facial hair or pores, and are unlikely to start disparaging Palin because of the empirical evidence of a photograph. As the article inside the magazine noted, we have far bigger empirical problems with Palin – and her imperfections are far from skin deep.

We have become so accustomed to a world of slant and partiality that Megyn Kelly, looking for reasons to object to the Newsweek cover, explicitly didn’t object to the headline, or consider it unfair. But – unlike the photograph – the headline completely lacked impartiality, announcing its “problem” with Palin from the outset.

As someone who shares that problem, I wasn’t predisposed to protest. After reading the actual article – which apparently conservative media types can’t be bothered to do, as they’re too busy worrying about appearances – I am even more disposed to agree with the article’s perspective, and its arguments. But I am deeply concerned that we’ve become so used to living in a “No Fact Zone“, to borrow Stephen Colbert’s phrase, that Kelly, Tantaros, et al could see nothing remarkable in a news magazine’s cover story announcing an interpretive judgment from the outset.

We’ve been spun for so long that we can no longer see straight – an undiluted truth, like an untouched photograph, is suspect, dishonest in its honesty, imbalanced by virtue of being insufficiently, or openly, imbalanced. We recognise distortion only in its absence. Objectivity has become objectionable, and if it’s unflattering, it must be unfair.

As an accidental expatriate living in Britain for the last decade, I have often been asked why the UK doesn’t have a version of shows like The Colbert Report, as if its absence reflects a failure of nerve on Britain’s part. But the answer seems to me obvious: it is because the BBC and the other major British news outlets still exercise the principle of journalistic impartiality, and still believe in that fusty, archaic, elitist thing called truth. They don’t always achieve it, to be sure, but as far as I can tell America’s stopped trying. Colbert only makes sense in a mediasphere dominated by the likes of Megyn Kelly, who finds objectivity unfair when it doesn’t favour her agenda. Objectivity may be an impossible ideal for humans to achieve, but that it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth striving for. There’s a reason why we call it the ugly truth.

From over here across the pond, it seems that America has been quite cavalier in its willingness to toss the principles of fact and objectivity aside in favour of a screaming subjectivity that passes for individualism and, God help us, democracy. As Colbert told President Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ dinner, reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Todd Palin’s Past Political Associations A Likely Security Clearance Disqualifier

Banner of the Alaskan Independence Party, a radical group that advocates for Alaskan secession from the United States. Todd Palin registered as a member on October 1995 and except for a short period of a few months in 2000 when he changed his registration to undeclared, Todd Palin remained a registered member of AIP until July 2002.

Something to consider … were Gov. Sarah Palin to be elected vice president, the influential role her husband Todd Palin has played in the Alaska governor’s administration might be greatly curtailed by his past associations with the Alaskan Independence Party.  According to author Frank Naif, a former CIA operative, Todd Palin could very well be disqualified for national security clearance.

Although Sarah Palin smack talks Barack Obama for “palling around with terrorists,” it turns out that the Palin family has its own history of palling around with Alaska’s own unique brand of America-haters. Palin’s husband Todd was once an actual member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). Palin herself was not a member of AIP — but many AIP luminaries claim her as a kindred spirit and “one of their own.”

A charitable characterization of AIP might be “quirky down-home Alaska politics.” However, the security processes that govern access to our defense and national security institutions might not look so kindly on Todd Palin’s past political associations. Indeed, if Todd Palin were applying for a job in the US government or at a contractor that required access to sensitive classified information — a security clearance — he would very likely be ineligible.

What’s so bad about the AIP? The party officially renounces violence and disloyalty to the United States, even though its members often do not. The AIP has long been aligned closely with paramilitary militia groups — the kind that fear black helicopters and a United Nations takeover of the US. Indeed, under the leadership of AIP’s tough-talking founder, Joe Vogler, AIP allied itself with the Islamic dictatorship in Iran in 1993 so that Vogler could appear at the United Nations to appeal for Alaska’s freedom from US “tyranny.” A fellow AIP member murdered Vogler before he could take the UN stage. The current AIP chairwoman, Lynnette Clark, believes that Vogler’s killer was framed and all but blames the Federal government for Vogler’s “execution.”

Security clearances are a defining fact of life for the national security drones who quietly toil away in secret vaults and mean foreign streets to help protect America. Entry-level defense and intelligence employees often wait months — even years — for the results of an exhaustive background investigation and maybe even a polygraph interrogation before they are allowed to start work with a government agency or contractor. Seasoned intelligence and defense workers routinely re-submit to the security investigation process every few years, or if their work requires them to gain access to a specialized or “compartmented” program.

The criteria for security clearances have changed with the times, but some bedrock principles always apply. When I was in the Army in the ’80s for example, tattoos were actually a disqualifying factor for a clearance, as was any past drug use. Fashion and social changes forced a change to those kinds of exclusions. In the early ’90s, homosexuality was still a disqualifier — but that was overturned with Clinton-era adjustments to the clearance process. The rise of computer culture has brought new concern over illegal computer activity, which has found its way into security investigations.

However, security investigators will always be interested in particularly serious issues — criminal activity, for example, or major financial problems like a history of debt collections and bankruptcy. And of course, loyalty to the US and foreign connections are a major focus of personal security investigations. “Is the subject a foreign spy?” the investigators ask. “Would the subject ever participate in activities intended to harm the United States?”

The security clearance investigation is based on the Standard Form 86, a 21-plus page government form that gathers information on an individual’s family, friends, education, employment, residences, finances, law enforcement history, drug and computer use, foreign contacts, and associations with violent or subversive political groups. I have filled out the SF 86 dozens of times. When I was the security officer for an intelligence contractor, I routinely reviewed our employees’ SF 86 forms before asking the government to process them for security clearances, looking for obvious disqualifications. The idea here was to avoid the costs of investigating employees who were obviously not eligible for a clearance, like the guy who “experimented” with marijuana at least 100 times in the previous year.

Above all, honesty is the rule for anyone filling out an SF 86 — do you think CIA or DoD will want to hire or retain someone who lied on a security form?

Which gets us back to Todd Palin. From the security officer’s perspective, Todd Palin the hypothetical applicant should be truthful and disclose his former association with AIP on the SF 86 in Section 29, Association Record. And because AIP has been associated with the Revolutionary Government of Iran, he probably should also disclose his AIP membership on Section 20, Foreign Activities.

How would government security officials who administer the security clearance process view the facts of Todd Palin’s association with AIP? The answer is not clear cut, but his involvement in a secessionist party with foreign and violent connections would inject serious doubts about his security suitability. At best, the AIP association would raise questions that might be resolved favorably with further investigative work. However, many security officials would likely view the AIP association negatively — especially the Iranian connection — and deny Todd Palin a clearance.

Managers of the most sensitive special security programs are allowed wide latitude in denying clearances. These programs, called Special Access Programs, or SAPs, are scattered across government and are focused on specific tasks, such as weapons development or special operations or presidential transportation. A SAP program can exclude individuals based on connections to a foreign country, such as immigrant parents (often excluding vitally needed foreign language speakers), or very stringent financial criteria, such as $10,000 in unsecured debt (often excluding many recent college graduates). Many SAP managers would very likely deny Palin a clearance based on association with or membership in a secessionist party with known ties to a hostile foreign government.

So the Palin family is associated with a political party hostile to America in word and deed. That’s a matter of record that has real impact on established norms in the national security community. According to the laws and processes that help protect national security, actually joining a fringe, gun-toting, anti-government party indicates a potential risk of disloyalty, or worse.

Meanwhile, acquaintance with an aging ex-hippy who once belonged to a terrorist group famous for accidentally blowing itself up — I’m not sure if that’s relevant to presidential qualifications. Or national security.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Colin Powell Is Ready To Endorse … Barack Obama for President

Former United States Secretary of State General Colin L. Powell

Political analyst Lawrence O’Donnell, writing this morning on the Huffington Post, believes that former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sometime after the third and final presidential debate.  If true, this could be a decisive turning point in the presidential race for the White House.  Fox News has already reported the same story, but with a decidedly negative, racist tone to the coverage.

When Colin Powell turns off his TV after the final presidential debate, he will have learned everything he is going to learn about the candidates vying to succeed his former boss, George W. Bush. Powell has made it clear that he has been thinking about an endorsement for a long time but wanted to hear more from the candidates before making his choice. It now seems beyond doubt that Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama and thereby hammer the final nail in the coffin of the Republican campaign to hold onto the White House.

The recent ugliness of the McCain-Palin rally audiences cannot be lost on Colin Powell. And Powell is not one to ignore a 14 point lead in a New York Times poll. But most important for Powell and the press will be his explicit rejection of the Bush-McCain approach to Iraq, Iran and the rest of the world.

Powell’s endorsement will be perfectly timed to dominate a news cycle or two. It will give Obama the one thing he still needs more of–credibility as Commander-In-Chief. And Sarah Palin’s speechwriters will be hard pressed to come up with a condescending quip about it.

Colin Powell Is Ready To Endorse

In Alaska, Exposure Changes Palin Image for Good & Bad

Palin's image has changed, for better and worse, in the six weeks since she joined the McCain Republican presidential ticket.

Journalist Sean Cockerham, reporting for the Anchorage Daily News, looks ahead at Governor Sarah Palin’s political future after the presidential election, both in Alaska and on a national level.  Following her polarizing, negative campaign for the vice-presidency, Gov. Palin will be faced with a much more aggressive Alaska Legislature that will no longer be intimidated by her or the tactics of her financial backers.

Over the past six weeks, Sarah Palin has morphed on the national campaign trail from bipartisan small state governor to a conservative lightning rod. Even if she doesn’t win the vice presidency, her political career will never be the same.

Palin has always attracted controversy, but she is now a far more polarizing figure, both in Alaska as well as nationally, than before her nomination. If she returns, the Republican governor will face former Democratic allies furious at her campaign attacks. She will also face lawmakers from both parties ticked off at her handling of the so-called Troopergate investigation and her recent false assertions that the investigator’s report cleared her, according to interviews with a number of lawmakers and others who watch Alaska politics.

“We’ve seen her do and say things that are shocking to us, so it’s going to be different, to put it mildly,” said Juneau Democratic Rep. Beth Kerttula, the House minority leader. “We have a whole different way of looking at her.”

But Palin would also return as a national figure who excited huge crowds across the nation and is already being described as a potential presidential candidate four years from now. She continues to enjoy high approval ratings among Alaskans, and she would come back a seasoned campaigner with new political chops.

“The main thing is, if she comes back as governor and McCain didn’t win, I do not think she’ll be blamed for it all. She won’t come back as a loser,” said Anchorage political consultant and pollster Dave Dittman. “She’d come back, I think as a winner, or as a person who if McCain had paid more attention to her or followed her lead could have been successful. I think she’d come back strong.”

The McCain-Palin campaign is down in the polls, but nearly three weeks remain until election day. In the meantime, her unexpected rise to the national stage and her new political persona has Alaskans speculating about what happens if she doesn’t win and comes back as governor.

“It’s a question on everybody’s mind,” said Mike Hawker, a Republican state representative from Anchorage.

Gregg Erickson, former publisher of a publication on state government who has watched Alaska politics for decades, predicted a rougher road for Palin than in the past.

“I think things will be very, very different for her if she comes back,” Erickson said. “She’s done some things as vice-presidential candidate that are not favorable for her role as governor, her ability to govern.”

Dittman agreed that a returning Palin would face a more aggressive Legislature than before her turn on the national stage, one that probably wouldn’t be as intimidated by her as before.

Palin has always been much more popular with the public than with legislators. Back when pollsters measured her approval rating among Alaskans in the 80 percent range, it was tough for legislators to resist her. Her Alaska approval ratings have dropped since her nomination to as low as 62 percent, at least according to some pollsters. That’s still an enviable approval rating.

The strength of the opposition, Erickson said, would depend on whether she slid any more after the election was over.

A NEW PALIN?

Palin foes and allies agree she’s likely to seek another national office if she doesn’t win the vice presidency. While she has been ridiculed by some, she has a devoted base of supporters and there’s speculation a U.S. Senate run could be in her future, or even a presidential bid the next time the Republican nomination comes open.

North Pole Republican state Rep. John Coghill said if Palin returns to Alaska as governor, there will always be the question of whether her decisions are being made for the good of the state or to position herself for national office.

“If she comes back then she’s going to have to be very clear of what her motives are in her decisions,” Coghill said.

Coghill said, overall, he’d expect a returning Palin to be more experienced and a little savvier. He said Palin would have national horsepower that she could use to advance Alaska’s interests. He said it would put Alaska in a “nice, favored position.”

But Juneau Democratic Sen. Kim Elton suggested in his newsletter this week that Palin’s broadside about Barack Obama “palling around with terrorists” and other one-liners from rallies have potential blowback for Alaska if Obama is elected and Palin has to work with the Democratic administration.

It’s clear that Palin’s relationship with Alaska Democrats is in deep freeze. That’s a turnaround from pre-nomination days, when Palin’s fiercest critics in the Legislature were Republicans and she relied on Democrats to get through her two biggest bills — a tax increase on oil companies and a license for a Canadian firm to pursue a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Lower 48.

Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski, one of the legislators who allied with her on those big issues in Juneau, said he “barely recognizes” the current Palin.

“It’s disappointing to see her bashing Democrats when her main political successes would never have passed without significant support from Democrats,” he said.

Anchorage Republican Hawker said Palin’s frostier relationship with the Democrats could have the effect of helping some Republican legislators warm up to her who weren’t Palin fans before. Hawker said Palin might also now realize that “just because you are a Republican in Alaska does not make you an evil person.”

Many Alaska Republican legislators have complained Palin has been too broad during her time as governor in suggesting that the state’s politics are corrupt.

REBUILDING TRUST

Kenai Republican Rep. Mike Chenault, considered to be a potential speaker of the state House when the Legislature convenes in January, said it remains to be seen how Palin’s new political persona plays with Republican lawmakers.

“It’s hard to say which if any Republicans would change their position on the governor based upon either her running for vice president or her handling of Troopergate,” Chenault said.

There’s resentment among some legislators of both parties for how Palin handled the Legislature’s investigation into her dismissal of her public safety commissioner and if she improperly pressured him to fire a state trooper once married to her sister.

The governor’s surrogates bashed the Alaska Democratic legislators leading the investigation, who were some of her biggest allies on oil and gas issues, saying they were Obama fans who made their bias clear. The investigation, though, was authorized by unanimous vote of the bipartisan Legislative Council, and some Republicans bristled at Palin’s refusal to cooperate in it as well as her attorney general’s failed challenge of the Legislature’s subpoenas.

Steve Branchflower, the investigator hired by the Legislative Council, released his report on Friday concluding that Palin abused her power and broke state ethics law in pressing for the trooper to be fired. But Palin’s response to the report was to say that she was vindicated and “I’m very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there.”

The report said Palin’s removal of her commissioner, Walt Monegan, was not solely about his refusal to fire the state trooper but it was likely a contributing factor. Palin has the right to dismiss a commissioner for any reason she likes.

Legislators are far from united in their reaction to the report, with some Republicans agreeing with Palin it was a political circus. There’s no sign lawmakers are planning to take any formal action against Palin. But hard feelings abound.

“Those people who don’t believe and don’t support the governor, I think the events will perhaps exacerbate their outrage,” said Hawker, the Anchorage Republican. Likewise, he said, Palin supporters are likely to “express their moral outrage at what they feel is a persecution of the governor.”

If she comes back as governor, Hawker said, “It will be one of her immediate challenges to get through, rebuilding fences, rebuilding trust. Those issues will be there with both the Democrats and the Republicans.”

Exposure Changes Palin Image for Good & Bad