Word: palin
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...Across the row from the State Fair livestock pavilion - with its champion pigs, giant cabbage and 900-lb. pumpkins - Eddie Grasser mans an NRA booth. Palin is a lifetime NRA member - a demographic that has not been particularly high on John McCain - and Grasser couldn't be more excited about the governor he calls Sarah. Like Grasser, everyone here seems to be on a first name basis with their politicians. "It's just one of those things about Alaska politics," says Grasser. So Governor Palin is Sarah, the irascible (and currently indicted) Senator Stevens is Uncle Ted, and even Representative...
...Palins certainly seem to fit into Wasilla, which has just over 7,000 inhabitants. This town has grown east and west along the railroad, becoming the fastest-growing community in the state. Many credit Palin with helping that expansion, though critics say it is a textbook case of unchecked suburban sprawl. As mayor, she pushed property taxes down to miniscule amounts, and the low 2.5% sales tax has enticed big box retailers like WalMart and Target to come...
...Palin family lives on Lake Lucille on the western end of town - she's always maintained her residence here, even though the Capitol is a long flight away in Juneau. It's a perfectly Alaskan lake: still waters ringed by evergreens and saw-toothed peaks, staged beneath a wolf-colored sky. You can just make out Palin's house a stone's throw from the public launch at the Best Western Hotel, by the red and white floatplane on the small dock out front (the governor's husband is a pilot in addition to being an oil worker, commercial fisherman...
...Normal small-town life for the First Dude and his wife is over. Even as Governor, Palin was still spotted at the market, driving her SUV around town, or worshiping at the nondenominational Wasilla Bible Church. On Friday afternoon, I was able to just pick up the phone and call Palin's parents, who live in town. They had just heard the news Friday morning themselves; they had been out caribou hunting and gold mining - how Alaska is that? - so there wasn't any advance warning for them. Her mother Sally told me this before remembering that...
...when Marty and Cheryl Metiva, a power couple in town (he's on city council, running for mayor, and she leads the Chamber of Commerce), take me up the Palin's driveway to look at the house, we are met by police officers in two Wasilla patrol cars, who then spend a while copying down our drivers license information. "We're on watch now, you bet," one of the officers said with a smile...