Organizing for America | Mark Ricketson's Blog

Mark Ricketson's Blog

By Mark from Boulder, CO - Sep 3rd, 2008 at 10:08 pm EDT

From Brad Smith to Anne Kilkenny:
Dear Anne,
Since you live in Wasilla where Sarah Palin was mayor please tell me about
her as a person and public official. Did you know her personally? What
observations can you share about Sarah Palin as she moved forward in Alaska
politics?
Regards, Brad
--------------------------------------

From Anne to Brad:

I have known Sarah since 1992. Wasilla is a small town. Everyone here
knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis.
My son is a friend of her daughter Bristol. I also am on a first name basis
with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings
during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She has matured a lot since her early days on the City Council. Thank God.

She is enormously popular, having enjoyed approval ratings above 70%, and
as high as 80%, as Governor. In every way she's like the most popular girl
in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote
for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

She's smart and savvy, but her only real experience is as mayor of a city
with a population of about 4,500 (at the time), and 1.5 yrs as governor of a
state with under 700,000 residents.

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept
her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for eight
months.

She is "pro-life" and she walks that talk. She recently gave birth to a
Down's syndrome baby.

She has terrific parents who have been there for her and lots of help
raising her kids and managing her family. She has good kids.   Like all
politicians, she is a largely absent parent, and spends more time with her
kids in public when there are cameras rolling than in private.   Her family
was slow to grasp the reality of political life and used to complain about
her parenting.

She is photogenic in spades. She is a good smiler. She is a former TV
reporter and is comfortable behind the camera. She is a former beauty
queen.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there"
and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

She has taken on the Republican Party power-brokers in Alaska.

Her husband works "2 on, 2 off" on the North Slope for BP and is a champion
snowmobile racer. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon
in Bristol Bay for a month in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination
is fishing their major source of income.   Nor has her life-style ever been
anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters; her pro-NRA positions are not
just political posturing.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this
small city was turned over to an administrator who she had been pushed to
hire by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble
over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall attempt.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years
as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During
those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by
38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002).    She reduced
progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed
even food. The tax cuts that she brags about benefited large corporate
property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her administration weren't enough
to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too.
She inherited a city with ZERO debt, but left it with indebtedness of over
$22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for?
Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? No. $1m for a park.
$15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed
through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear
title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the
lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the
community but a huge money pit, not the profit- generator she claimed it
would be. $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs
without any borrowing. Meanwhile, the City still lacks a sewage treatment
plant and other basic infrastructure.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office re-decorated
more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a small city (population at that
time of about 4,500). Public indebtedness under her mayoral administration
increased over $4000 per capita.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in
Alaska. Rather than invest it in technology that will make us energy
independent and increase efficiency, she proposed distribution of this
surplus to every individual in the state.

SPEND AND BORROW. In this time of record state revenues and budget
surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects,
even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend
today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or
compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her
staff. While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly
respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing
from the library some books that Sarah didn't like. City residents rallied
to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at
out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination
letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her
enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club", so what did she bring Wasilla?
A new set of "old boys", including Wasilla's worst-ever Public Works
Director, the totally unqualified wife of a powerful person in state
politics. She fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the
City and as Governor she hired/elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people,
creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally
grateful, so fiercely loyal-- loyal to the point of abusing their power to
further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of
pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told
the press. Her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity
about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire
him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire
him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper.
Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than
2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that
she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to
replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for
sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew the
nomination.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help.
The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing
her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her
first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal
City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this
ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything
publicly about her. People fear her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah demanded
the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of
the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid.   She had no background
in Oil & Gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid
$122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was
told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work.
A member of the Commission and the State Chair of the Republican Party was
ethically challenged, by dramatically quitting and accusing him of ethics
violations (for which he was fined) she solved all her problems in one fell
swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as
the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the status quo.

She is solidly Republican. Her battles with the Republican party were not
over philosophy. They were over ethics and power. She is no political
maverick in terms of philosophy.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They
don't call her "Saint Sarah"; they call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her
unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. When Sarah's mother-in-law
ran for Mayor, Sarah endorsed the person who was running AGAINST her
mother-in-law who was a highly respected member of the community and
experienced manager.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President. It scares the heck
out of me to think that someone as inexperienced as Sarah Palin could become
President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more
knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have under-estimated her and are
regretting it.

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Barack Obama on Lobbying

By Mark from Boulder, CO - Sep 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 pm EDT

One of the reasons that national politics has become so divisive is the lack of transparency in government coupled with self serving focus of special interests. Our situation today is not all that far removed from the Tammy Hall politics of a hundred years ago were government policy was decided in smoked filled rooms by the political power brokers of the day.

Today, Tammy Hall has been replaced by K Street, where tens of thousands of lobbyist reside with hundreds of millions of dollars of special interest money eager to sway public policy for their client's benefit. A good example of both the lack of transparency and special interest influence is our Nation's energy policy. Formulated in secret by Vice President Dick Cheney with lobbyist from the oil and gas industry, this policy has a myopic approach to meeting our 21st century energy needs. Currently our national energy policy is focused on the promotion of more oil and gas exploration and development as the solution to our energy needs.

The Obama plan takes a vastly different approach by shinning the light of public scrutiny on the K Street lobbyist activities. Obama's plan calls for creation of centralized Internet database that will give tax payers the ability to sort, search, and download lobbying reports, ethics records and campaign finance filings. Note that Obama is not restricting lobbying. Rather he's just giving you and I the opportunity to find out what's going on. If you want to know who has the "juice" in Washington, just follow the money.

An Obama administration will also implement independent monitoring of the Lobbying Laws and Ethics Rules. Having Congress continue to do this function is akin to having the fox guard the hen house.

And finally, Barrack Obama supports true public campaign financing. By TRUE Obama means returning to the days of providing free television and radio air time to candidates. where a huge percentage of the cost of running a campaign resides. Yes, in days past, the communication industry was required to provide free open access to candidates for public office. Guess what K Street did for the TV and radio industry.

Transparency about how Washington is influenced by special interest money. What a bright idea.

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United We Stand, Divided We Fall

By Mark from Boulder, CO - Sep 2nd, 2008 at 10:28 pm EDT

This year's contest for President of the United States is a pivotal event. I think most everyone would agree that we need a different approach to politics, especially at the national level, if we are to ensue that America will continue to offer the promise of a better life for every ensuing generation.

The reality is that we are a nation of differences. Clearly, there is no one way, no one belief, no one "perfect" vision for America. America is about diversity and the ability of its people to come together to nourish and support an American way of life. Unfortunately, our national journey has become, and continues to be, divisive. We are grouping into camps: right vs. left; liberal vs. conservative; rich vs. poor; white vs. color, etc. We have become a nation of self interests.

I ask, to what purpose and to what end does divisiveness serve us, we the people? Are these United States ever going to be just one of anything? It is a comfortable fiction to believe that we will (or can) live in a country where everyone is marching lock step in the same direction. This may be possible in China but not in the U.S. of A. unless we are willing to give up the fundamental principles that our country was founded upon.

So, where does that leave us? The adage goes "united we stand, divided we fall". If we continue on our current path, we will fall. Being divided will paralyze our national ability do deal with the multitude of challenges we, as nation, face. Most likely our fall will be gradual in our time, but the decline will accelerate as our children and eventually our grand children assume the mantle of responsibility for our national policies. Nations like China, India and modern alliances like the European Union will begin to outdistance us as we collectively race towards the future.

In this election, regardless of which "camp" you may identify with, it is time to look beyond our own self interest. Our democratic system compels us to elect representatives (local, state and national) whose job is to communicate the will of their electorate, again we the people. Assuming we all want a better future for our children, it is up to us, each of us, to communicate our desire to find the common ground by the representatives we elect. For it is only in compromise, the give and take, the giving up in order to get, that will allow us to move forward towards a better future as nation.

In this election I challenge you to think not about what's in for me, but rather how does my vote lead us to toward a better future. The choice therefore, which candidates do you think will be best able to transcend divisiveness, who can foster an atmosphere of compromise and can forge a vision of a 21st century America. Take the time and delve into each candidates record of accomplishments and listen to what the candidates say rather than how it is said. Remember it's not only about you.

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