Word: palin
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...This month, an Alaskan mother hit the jackpot. Gov. Sarah Palin? No, Kaylene Johnson, the author of Sarah, the first book to be published about Palin. The slender volume, written well before John McCain chose Palin as his running mate, sold some 10,000 copies when it originally came out in April. Now, with 350,000 copies in print and counting, the book has rocketed onto the New York Times bestseller list...
...author doesn't hide her admiration for the Governor, whom she refers to throughout by her first name. In fact, she tells Palin's story in terms usually reserved for the DVD boxes of romantic comedies: "It is a political Cinderella tale in which a small-town mayor and hockey mom follows her hopes and dreams in the face of a disapproving political establishment to become the belle of the inaugural ball." (That's the gubernatorial ball, of course...
...hagiographic elements of this book are, unexpectedly, mixed with enough controversy to portray Palin as a fairly sharp-elbowed politician. Johnson conscientiously includes quotes from numerous unflattering articles about her, as well as noting controversies that she left in her wake. The author reports, for example, that a citizen's group was assembled by the disgruntled former mayor of Wasilla to discuss ousting Palin after she beat him for the top municipal post in 1996, and that a raucous two-hour showdown ensued between her detractors and her supporters...
...farm country, but also by highlighting his specific opposition to Youngstown State's engineering program, Youngstown Air Reserve Station's logistics facility, the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown's HIV/AIDs Ministry and Youngstown's sewage overflow project. When it comes to sewage overflows, most Youngstown residents probably agree with what Palin told Gibson: "It's not inappropriate for a mayor or a governor to request and work with their Congressmen, their Congresswomen, to plug into the federal budget - along with every other state - a share of the federal budget for infrastructure...
...same thing as shrinking government or balancing budgets or getting the economy going again. President Bush opposes earmarks too, but spending and deficits have soared on his watch. McCain was right to fight the Bridge to Nowhere, but it's worth keeping in mind that when Palin finally gave up on it, the money didn't go back to the Treasury - it stayed in Alaska to be used for a different project. Most pork, even egregious pork, doesn't go Nowhere...