Word: palin
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Parnell is one of those remade in Palin's image. Once an an oil lobbyist, Parnell latched onto Palin's reform agenda when he ran for lieutenant governor in 2006. Last year, with Palin's endorsement, he announced that he would take on the state's only delegate to the House of Representatives, Don Young, in a GOP primary race. Young, one of the most entrenched members of Alaska's political establishment, is currently under investigation for taking money from the oil services company VECO. (Alaskan Ted Stevens, the Senate's longest-serving Republican, is scheduled to stand trial later...
...primary took place Aug. 26, and the most recent vote count had Parnell behind by just 239 votes. A recount is likely but if Parnell loses - and John McCain and Sarah Palin win in November - then he would serve out the remaining two years of Palin's term. If Parnell triumphs, then next in line for the Alaska statehouse is attorney general Talis Colberg, a 2007 Palin appointee...
Colberg also has a role in the current Troopergate investigation - about whether Palin pressured then-Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan to fire Palin's former brother-in-law Mike Wooten, and then fired Monegan because he wouldn't fire Wooten. Under normal circumstances, Colberg's office would have represented the governor in the inquiry, but Colberg admitted in August that he was among the dozen or so members of Palin's staff and family who contacted Monegan about Wooten. So Colberg had to recuse himself, and the state hired independent counsel to defend the governor...
Colberg would only be acting governor, however, and would call a special election from 60 to 90 days after taking that role. But on the night of Palin's rousing convention speech, even that had some at the Mug-Shot Bar in Wasilla grousing. "A new statewide election? That'll cost hundreds of thousands of dollars," said one patron. "Sarah's great for Alaska, but I don't know if she's that great...
...Sarah Palin has arrived in our midst with the force of a rocket-propelled grenade. She has boosted John McCain's candidacy and overwhelmed the presidential process in a way that no vice-presidential pick has since Thomas Eagleton did the precise opposite - sinking his sponsor, George McGovern, in 1972. Obviously, something beyond politics is happening here. We don't really know Palin as a politician yet, whether she is wise or foolhardy, substantive or empty. Our fascination with her - and it is a nonpartisan phenomenon - is driven by something more primal. The Palin surge illuminates the mythic power...