Female Politicians, Sarah Palin, and Alaska

I have been reading up on Sarah Palin, including the well researched, fact based biography “Sarah from Alaska,” which provides an unbiased telling of Palin’s rise, and valuable interviews from those who knew her in Alaska. My favorite quote from the bio, although long, insightfully sums up what was said by many of the people interviewed reads:

(Quoting Republican State Legislator Ms. Lesil McGuire from Anchorage, who served prior to and during the Palin partial term as governor, pages 277-278)

“I am proud of her for entering the fray, for coming out and being strong with a full family and all of those obligations that she struggles with. And I am very proud of the person that she was when she entered the race. She was very real and plain spoken. But what I see as having happened now is that you had a really good person thrust way up ahead of where their experience level was. Maybe it would be like asking someone who had observed or read medical textbooks to go and perform a surgery.”

She continued, “No matter how competent you are as a person and your character and what you stand for, it doesn’t mean that you have the experience necessary to govern. People take that for granted. I think they think that when they are voting for someone, it’s a personality contest. Well, if I like them, if they are attractive to me, if they seem like a good person, maybe I want them to be my neighbor, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are qualified to govern. And it may mean they are qualified to govern later on in their life, not at that particular point. So she got ahead of her experience. Because of that, in my opinion, her self-confidence deteriorated. She stopped having one-on-one meetings, because, frankly, the conversations would get into details that she wasn’t able to answer. That then begets a whole other series of problems. People feel like you are not respecting them because you are not meeting with them. You are evasive; you are aloof. You’re not doing it necessarily because you’re mean, because you are rejecting the public; it’s because you’re maybe out of your league and then now you compound this with this national exposure, and she never got an opportunity to define to the world who she was prior to that.”

This one quote said so much to me about the clear lack of Palin’s qualifications and serious flaws of character to hold national office. What I found so compelling about this one quote is that Lesil McGuire is relatively close in age to Palin (Palin is approximately 7 years older), both are women who have spent a similar period of time involved in Alaska – Palin as mayor before her election as Governor of Alaska; McGuire as first elected to the Alaska House of Representatives, and then to the Alaska Senate. Both women are Republicans, with Palin beginning her political career as a more moderate Republican before becoming more conservative, while McGuire has remained more moderate. McGuire worked with Palin in the state government of Alaska before AND after her failed national campaign, and therefore her observations of changes during that period seemed especially pertinent.

So, to better understand Ms. McGuire, and in the course of reading as much as I can to provide some depth before I tackle the fluff-book by Palin, “Going Rogue” so that I may better separate fact from the apparently considerable amount of fiction it includes, I took a closer look at her background to gain some insight into her observations about Palin. My hope is that in doing so, I may better understand not only Palin, but the division of the Republican Party as it reflects the pro-Palin / anti-Palin sentiment, and of course to better understand how Alaskans view Palin.

The similarities between Palin and McGuire are as interesting as their differences. Both Palin and McGuire were born outside of Alaska, in western states (Palin in Idaho, McGuire in Oregon). Both women majored in Speech Communications, although McGuire also majored in Political Science. Both women attended college at western schools, Palin at Hawaii, an Alaska Community College and the University of Idaho; McGuire at Willamette in Oregon, for both her BA and JD. Palin is the youngest Governor of Alaska, McGuire is the youngest member of the Alaska Senate.

Palin’s husband Todd has figured prominently in a variety of Alaska scandals relating to his use of inappropriate influence and involvement with government, such as Troopergate. McGuire’s husband, Tom Anderson, a former state Representative, is serving a five year sentence for extortion, money laundering, bribery and conspiracy relating to his dealing with VECO.

VECO is the big oil company that was behind a wide variety of Alaskan ethics violations and criminal convictions in part targeted by Palin’s attempted ethics reform, which also contributed 90% of the campaign contributions to Palin’s failed run for Lieutenant Governor prior to her election as Governor.

Both Palin and McGuire have been involved with issues relating to energy, both renewable and issues relating to the regulation of the oil industry in Alaska. McGuire has co-sponsored multiple bills in the Alaska Senate in 2009 relating to the In-State Gas Pipeline, which is widely viewed as Palin’s biggest achievement in office, although far from a fait-accompli at this stage. The two women were in opposition to each other over accepting the Stimulus money from the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, both women are mothers, and both women have interests in legislation relating to children’s issues. Both Palin and McGuire are attractive individuals, ruling out the popular grumble of jealousy advanced by some conservatives.

McGuire continues to be a respected and active Senator in Alaska. Palin famously left the office of Governor prior to serving out her term of office to promote the book Going Rogue, and more recently to work for Fox News, while hovering around the edges of other election campaigns.

All of which suggests to me that Alaskan Senator McGuire “knows her onions” when she comments on former Governor Palin, on the ins-and-outs of Alaskan politics, and the requirements of successful long-term elective office.

Related posts:

1. Sarah Palin Wants a Missile Defense System for Alaska
2. Book Review: Sarah From Alaska
3. Palin Bans Bloggers and Local Media from “Public” Book Signing in Alaska
4. George Will Calls Sarah Palin a Quitter
5. Sarah Palin: A High Risk/Reward Pick for McCain