Did Ranked Choice Voting Cost Palin The Election?

After the election results for Alaska's ranked choice voting election to fill the remainder of US Rep Don Young, Sarah Palin blamed her loss to Mary Peltola on Ranked Choice Voting.  

“Ranked-choice voting was sold as the way to make elections better reflect the will of the people. As Alaska – and America – now sees, the exact opposite is true. The people of Alaska do not want the destructive democrat agenda to rule our land and our lives, but that’s what resulted from someone’s experiment with this new crazy, convoluted, confusing ranked-choice voting system. It’s effectively disenfranchised 60% of Alaska voters."  [From her campaign website.]

The quick answer to the title question is "No".  

Below (way below) is a video discussing this question.  I don't know who these people are - it looks like it's a podcast from The Hill.   (Biasly rates The Hill "moderate" with an ever so slight lean to the right.)  But they do more or less reflect my sense of Ranked Choice Voting.  

What they don't discuss is how getting rid of the closed Republican primary - having an open primary with all candidates and picking the top four to be in the final Ranked Choice general election.  

A closed Republican primary would have probably led to a Palin victory and two major candidates - one Republican and one Democrat (Palin and Peltola) running in the general election, with some minor third party candidates.  

Would Peltola have been able to defeat Palin in that sort of general election?  We won't know.  But we do know that half of Begich's second votes went to either Peltola or no one.  Here's what it looked like on the Alaska Elections website:

click on images to enlarge

So it could well be that Peltola may have pulled out the victory under the old system.  Lots of Alaska remember how Palin quit being governor after only finishing part of the term.  Many also remember the issues with the Palin's oldest son over slashing school bus tires and opening his senior year in Michigan, and the giant brawl involving the Palin family and a Wasilla party.  

And long time Alaska Republicans remember how she publicly called out the GOP Party Chair for having a conflict of interest as a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission while, as GOP chair, soliciting donations from the oil companies the commission regulated.  

The benefit of Ranked Choice Voting, as they say in the video, is that you can vote for candidates that aren't likely to win without throwing away your vote, because you pick the one you like the most and then the next one, and if you like, the ones after that.  If you first choice loses, your second choice candidate (gets your vote instead.)

The Republicans - Begich and Palin - fought with each other in this campaign.  Ranked Choice Voting with an open primary means you can't alienate too many voters and it, theoretically, eliminates the extreme candidates who would win in a closed primary.  

There's also an interesting NYTimes article on this for those who can get past the paywall.  It looks at how Alaska got ranked choice voting and highlights Katherine Gehl who has devoted herself to the idea.  It mentions that an initiative in Missouri didn't get enough votes, but one in Nevada this year did.  Also interesting the Marc Elias who has been fighting hard with lawsuits against GOP attempts to deny that Biden won the election, worked hard against the Ranked Choice Initiative in Nevada.  Elias is a smart guy so I need to understand his opposition better. 

Also, a reminder for non-Alaskans, August 16 was also the primary election for the actual (not just the remaining months of Young's seat) Alaska House race.  Here's a list of the candidates, their vote tallies, and red marks the four top candidate who go on to the general election in November.

Tara Sweeney is both a Republican AND an Alaska Native Woman.  She is more aligned with oil interests.  I suspect that Alaska Natives will give Peltola their second vote if they vote first for Sweeney.  Will the Republicans come up with a more cooperative strategy and direct their voters to cast their next votes for the other Republicans?  Will it matter?  

Peltola has now gotten much more name recognition and more people have seen her.  She's so much more humble than the two candidates she beat in the Special Election, and unlike Palin, she speaks in whole sentences and in a calm tone.  Unless someone gets 50% + one vote on the first ballot, we won't know for two weeks, when all the ballots are in.  But if someone gets 48% in the first round and the others are much further back, that should be a good indicator too.  

Enjoy The First Day Of April - As March Madness Extends Into April

 I used to try to put something clever up on April 1.  My favorite was Palin Announces Conversion, with this image I put together back in 2010:

In 2019 I vowed not to do any April Fool's Day posts until after Trump was out of the White House.  But even now there's still nothing one can write that can compete with what Fox News offers every day.  

On the other hand, common decency never seemed so powerful.  The only aggression in the White House these days seems to be coming from the President's dogs.  

Maybe next year I'll be ready again.  The snow is starting to evaporate.  There's even an area in the backyard, under the trees, where it looks like there's soil showing.  Enjoy flowers poking out of the ground.  We still have a ways for that to be happening here.  

I'd also note that UCLA beat Michigan Monday to move to the Final Four.  

I was at the LA Sports Arena on December 28, 1963 when UCLA beat then Number 3 ranked Michigan at the LA Classic.  UCLA had won all its games up to then, but hadn't really played any important teams.  And UCLA was not seen as a basketball power before that season.  There wasn't even a basketball arena on campus.  They even played some of their home games that season at Santa Monica City College.  Michigan was the test to see if their seven game winning streak was just a fluke.

But the game began with an early display of John Wooden's full court press, and in the first three or four minutes, UCLA was ahead 16 to nothing.  The victory was all that much sweeter because among us was a Michigan fan who had no doubt, before the game, who would win.  

That was UCLA's first National Championship of their dynasty period.  They had 30 wins in a row.  Every game was a nail biter - could they keep their winning streak alive.  Their tallest starting players that year were Fred Slaughter and Keith Erickson at 6'5".  Stars Gail Goodrich and Walt Hazard were 6'1" and 6'3" respectively.  Lew Alcindor (later to become Karim Abdul Jabbar) was still playing high school ball in New York.  

Most of this is still very vivid in my brain all these years later, but I did check Wikipedia to be sure of some of the details. I also found an article on the game in the January 6, 1964 Sports Illustrated, but it didn't tell me what I wanted to know - whether the Bruins got their opening 16 points in two minutes or four.

But what struck me was that the article was written by long-time NPR sports commentator Frank Deford.  Deford died at age 78 in 2017.  So that means he was probably only 24 when he wrote that story at Sports Illustrated.  

I had no idea what all I was going to discover tonight writing this post.  I must say that being at UCLA at the start of their dynasty, and then a couple of years later watching the Freshman team (with Lew Alcindor) beat the national champion varsity team at the beginning of the season spoiled me.  There was never going to be anything better than those years.  

"They stomp on our neck, , ,"

This is the kind of rhetoric that gets conservatives telling black protestors to stop whining.

Except this wasn't black lives matter folks who said this.  No, this was my former governor when she endorsed Donald Trump the other day.

From New York Times (Palin's Trump endorsement speech):

“They stomp on our neck, and then they tell us, ‘Just chill, O.K., just relax.’ Well, look, we are mad, and we’ve been had. They need to get used to it.”

It's amazing how people can feel their own pain and get outraged about it, but have no patience for the pain of others.  And that goes for liberals who can't get into the heads of poor white males who see their position in the world declining rapidly.  I'm not saying these folks are right, but at least I can imagine why they're mad.


And here's another Palin bit I picked up at Immoral Minority that he got from ABC.

"My family is no different than other families that are dealing with some of the ramifications of war. And just really appreciate people who will support our troops and make sure that they are treated better than illegal immigrants for one."

Let's look at that second sentence.

"support our troops and make sure they are treated better than illegal immigrants for one."

First, let's look at the term 'illegal immigrants.'   What makes an immigrant 'illegal'? I think what people actually mean by this term is something like 'immigrant who broke the law coming into the US"?   Cause if that's the case, shouldn't we call US citizens who break the law while living here "illegal citizens."?  Like people who drive over the speed limit?  Or drive while legally drunk?  Or who punch out their girlfriends?

Second, what about our troops who ARE illegal immigrants?  What do you do then?  Distinguish between our troops who are fully documented US citizens or residents and those troops who are not?  We could come up with a catchy slogan, "Support our troops, but only if they are legal US residents."

Yes, for those scratching their heads about 'illegal' troops, the military has a program to take in undocumented immigrants.  A couple of 2014 bills, for example, to expand this practice were sponsored by Republicans: Reps. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., and Jeff Denham, R-Calif.

Why, you might ask, do I even bother looking at what Palin says?  Mostly I don't, but these quotes were in my face online (another good reason to be online less) and I like to have tidbits like this ready in case I run into a Palin/Trump believer.  Unfortunately, most of them seem to be so busy being righteously indignant about their loss of privilege with the erosion of racial and gender discrimination that facts and rational arguments don't make an impact.

AIFF 2012: Dan Mirvish Created Eisenstadt - A Fake Journalist Who Leaked Palin's Africa Is A Country

Mirvish's fake McCain advisor leaker Martin Eistenstadt

 [Check the AIFF 2012 Tab above for what's on today.]

Between Us  film maker Dan Mirvish, it says in the Dan Mirvish Director's video,  is a shameless self-promoter.

I'd seen Between Us and liked it a lot and wrote a very positive if short review.  Dan saw it and emailed me and soon we were chatting over skype - some of which you can see below in the video.  He mainly talks about the film but mentions in the background creating Martin Eisenstadt, a character who admits to being the McCain staffer who leaked the story that Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country that MSNBC picked up as a real story.(Link goes to Martin Eistenstadt video.)

Between Us plays again Friday at 8pm at the Bear Tooth.  Go see it.

Some interesting points - the play the film is based on was in two acts:  1.  The midwest house and 2. the NY City apartment.  In the film they switch back and forth as both evenings unfold.  Falling off the ladder in the movie was inspired by Dan's falling off a ladder while remodeling and breaking his leg.

A part that I didn't get on video answered my question about the links to Virginia Wolfe.  He told me there is a whole genre of Virginia Wolfe movies that include two couples that argue, such as Polanski's Carnage.


This video is really long for me (17 minutes).  I finally decided to just let it run almost unedited.  I don't see my role here as producing video as entertainment, but as documentation.  So I don't want to cut out some part that might be important to someone researching Mirvish in 20 years when he's a household name, and he will be if he keeps this up.  

"Only The Shooter Is To Blame" v "He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."

"Only The Shooter Is To Blame" is the title to a letter to the editor in today's Anchorage Daily News. Editors write the titles, but the letter writer does say:

The shootings in Tucson, Ariz., were the actions of one man and one man alone. Not because of Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck or any other conservative voice or anybody who wants stricter gun laws, or, better yet, no guns at all. And anyone who uses the murder of a 9-year- old girl* to make their point needs to re-evaluate their life.

There's been a clear defensiveness by some to deny any possible link between the level of confrontational rhetoric they've been using and violent acts such as the Arizona shooting.

Within hours of the shooting, every news report I heard included a right wing spokesperson strongly proclaiming there was no link between their confrontational  rhetoric and the violence. (I'd note that some left-wing rhetoric has gotten pretty testy too.)

The defensiveness of the right wing on this issue is understandable, because they lay blame on people they attack all the time.   And they knew immediately that they were vulnerable and had to immediately change the focus from themselves to others.  In this case, anyone who might link the violence to them. 

After all, here's what Sarah Palin said on her Facebook page on November 29, 2010:

Assange is not a “journalist,” any more than the “editor” of al Qaeda’s new English-language magazine Inspire is a “journalist.” He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. (emphasis mine.)

Aside from the off-the-wall link between Assange and al Qaeda and the insinuation-laden 'operative',  I would just say that Assange didn't tell anyone to do anything.  He merely passed on verbatim what US and other government officials said.  And we have no stories about anyone doing any violence because of the official documents published by Wikileaks.

So, if Palin thinks that Assange has blood on his hands - that publishing official government documents makes him responsible for potential violence by others - she has to believe that her cross hairs map and other provocative rhetoric means she too has blood on her hands - the real (not potential) blood of six dead and 13 wounded. 

But Palin never admits mistakes.  Instead, she deflects attention to her words by attacking her critics and claiming her own victimhood.   "Don't retreat, reload" could be translated as don't admit mistakes, but renew the attack.

"Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn," she said in the video released on her Facebook page. "That is reprehensible."  [BBC report]

Here she is, using inflammatory (dare I say reprehensible?) language to change the subject and to blame someone else, the media, for inciting hatred.  Classic Palin.  (Don't even try to suggest to her that what the media say doesn't matter, because people are responsible for their own hate. )

Now, let's be clear.  I'm NOT blaming Palin for the shooting.

The census says 308 million people live in the US.  I don't know how many of them listened to what could be called inflammatory right wing rhetoric, but there are  3,146,418 registered voters in Arizona, and we know that 3,146,417 of them did NOT go out and shoot a politician because of talk radio or Palin ads. Maybe all of them, since I don't even know whether Loughner is a registered voter.

There are different types of relationships.  Here are a couple of points on the continuum:

• Direct cause and effect - Politician A says "We need to get rid of this politician" and listener B hearing this, gets his gun and shoots the politician.
  
  
• Influence -  No specific factor is the cause by itself, all factors collectively play a role.  Television and video game violence, family relationships, mental health problems, availability of guns, difficulties at school all seem to have been factors.  If you took one away, would it still have happened?  If that one existed without any of the others would it have happened? 
  
  
• No link at all - The politicians may be talking rough, but the shooter has never heard them and didn't even know Giffords was a politician when he shot her.  

Then there's the related, but different concept of 'blame.'

Even if someone's words cause another to do something bad, that doesn't necessarily make the speaker even partially responsible.  But it might - depending on what was said under what conditions.  Telling a woman to steal $10,000 for you or you'll kill her daughter is different from telling someone how to shoot a gun and then the person goes out and kills someone. 

So, I'm not blaming Palin or Beck or anyone but the shooter for the shootings.  But a lot of things did influence what he did, but we don't know enough at this point to know which ones were more important.  If the shooter tells us that he was inspired by a particular website or speech to do the shooting, would that change anyone's minds?



Let's look at this a different way:

Kids in China grow up to speak Chinese. Italian kids learn to speak Italian.

Indonesian kids tend to grow up to be Muslims. Mexican kids tend to grow up to be Christians of some sort.

What's my point?  People do lots of things they don't individually choose to do, but because of the influences of their families, their communities, their cultures. 

Individuals do things because they see and hear things and develop skills and use tools available in their environments.  308 million Americans were NOT influenced to go out and shoot a politician after listening to the rhetoric of people like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.   Palin and Beck's rhetoric did not cause Jared Loughner to be mentally ill or violent. Though their anti-government, anti-tax rhetoric may have played a role in Arizona's cutting back mental health funding.  But even at the old spending levels, Loughner may not have gotten care that would have prevented this. 

But the anti-government rhetoric with metaphors involving guns and targets MAY have steered Loughner to take out his personal frustrations on a Democratic politician instead of a community college class or his family. Or nobody at all.

If the national conversations were more focused on issues than on people;  if people with  different views were treated as well-intended but mistaken instead of as evil, un-American enemies, then maybe the shooter would not have shot anyone.  And maybe he would have.

But for someone like Palin who is quick to blame others - such as saying Assange has blood on his hands - to deflect attention to her actions by blaming journalists for a blood libel (has anyone counted how many times she uses the word 'blood'?) against her seems totally disingenuous and calculated.  But I can't know what's inside her head.  Part of me believes that she doesn't see the inconsistency, that logic is not one of her faults.  But the rest of us can compare what she says about her friends and her perceived enemies, even when they do the same thing, and we can see those inconsistencies. As we can and should do with all politicians.




*As an aside, I'd point out that people used the abduction and murder of nine year old  Amber Hagerman to make their point that there needed to be a better way to get police to react to missing children reports.  Because they did, we now have AMBER Alerts.   Again, consistency matters, not whether we agree or not on a particular point.

Elitism, Intelligence, Sarah Palin, Joe Miller

[I've been trying to write a concise, coherent and insightful post dealing with the attacks on educated people.  But as I read more, the attack seems not against just the educated, but the Elite.  But Palin's notion of  "The Elite" doesn't simply mean 'smart' and certainly doesn't mean 'upper class.'  Let's just call this a first draft on the theme.]

Sept. 4, 2009 (MSNBC)

“I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment,” Palin said. “And I’ve learned quickly these past few days that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. . ."

October 24, 2008 (WN)

Q:  Who is a member of the elite?
Sarah Palin: . . . just people who think they are better than everyone else. . . John McCain and I are so committed to serving every American, hardworking, middle class Americans who are so desiring this economy getting put back on the right track. . .  [Emphasis added]
Q:  It's not education, it's not income based?
Sarah Palin:  Anyone who thinks they're better than anyone else.  
John McCain:  I know where a lot of them live.
Q:  Where's that?
John McCain:  In our nation's capital and New York City. . . I know who these elitists are, the ones she never went to a cocktail party with in Georgetown. . . They think they can dictate to America what they believe rather than let Americans think for themselves.

[Note:  Merriam's Online dictionary shows that while her definition is vaguely in the ballpark - an outsider's view of 'c' maybe - it doesn't convey the standard usage of that term.  McCain's is close to 'd.' 

a . . .the choice part : cream <the elite of the entertainment world> 

b  . . .the best of a class <superachievers who dominate the computer elite — Marilyn Chase> 

c . . .the socially superior part of society <how the elite live — A P World> <how the French-speaking elite…was changing — Economist> 

d : a group of persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence <members of the ruling elite> <the intellectual elites of the country>]

January 2009 Anchorage Daily News:

The dinner was held in the heart of Washington, D.C., at the Capital Hilton within sight of the White House. Palin's invitation to the Alfalfa Club was "a coup," said Letitia Baldrige, who served as the White House social secretary and chief of staff to Jacqueline Kennedy.

"It's something that everybody who's anybody in politics wants to be invited to," Baldrige said.

If a roasting by the most powerful people in America is a sign you've made it, then Palin had clearly arrived. Or, at the very least, was acknowledged Saturday night as one of the most interesting women in American politics.

November 23, 2009, From Talking Points Memo

O'REILLY: Let me be very bold and fresh again. Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?
PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the the [sic] kind of spineless... a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fat resume that's based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that has to be me.

So now the elite are spineless and propped up with an Ivy League education and a fat resume - that doesn't reflect hard work or private sector/free enterprise principles.  So the wealthiest of the wealthy who have made their money through free enterprise aren't in the elite?  

October 25, 2010 Right Wing News - Kathleen McKinley:

. . .These Ivy league schools have gone from being training grounds for Christian missionaries and ministers to propaganda factories for every leftist radical failed ideology known to man. Marxism, Darwinism, Freudianism, communism, multiculturalism, relativism, naturalism, positivism, socialism, liberalism, egalitarianism, feminist studies, gay studies, transgender studies, transvestite studies, outcome-based education, and radical environmentalism are not only taught, but celebrated. 

McKinley says this without a trace of irony given that Yale (she starts out mentioning Yale) was among colleges traditionally reserved for the sons of the economic and social upper class of this nation (often known as the elite), which had quotas for Jews and African-Americans, and didn't admit women at all.  No irony at all, even though both Presidents Bush graduated from Yale as well as William F. Buckley, and Clarence Thomas.

And Joe Miller.


Palin argues that elitists "think they are better than anyone else."  Is this as opposed to people who think they know more than anyone else?  After all, Palin, and her protege Joe Miller, talk as if they have a monopoly on the Truth, and everyone else is simply wrong.  Their statements are strong, declarative statements.  There are no qualifiers.  They leave no room for the possibility that they might not be 100% right.  Their opponents are 100% wrong.   It's clearly black and white.  Look at Miler's issues page, for example:

The only answer [There is only one option and I know what it is, if you disagree, you're wrong] is to return our federal government to the limits prescribed by our Constitution. Federal powers not specified in the Constitution are reserved to the States by the 10th Amendment.

I support the repeal of ObamaCare. First and foremost, there is no Constitutional authority for it. [The Constitutional authority isn't just flimsy, it flat out doesn't exist.]

I am unequivocally pro-life and life must be protected from the moment of conception to the time of natural death. [There's nothing you can tell me or show me that will change my mind.]

The problem here is that social truths aren't that easy.  Conception is one point on a continuum of when life could be said to begin.  Another possible point on the continuum to mark the start of life is birth.  There is no way to prove it.  Different communities define these 'truths' differently.  Unless you believe that God has defined all this.  But then, different gods have said different things.  And even different Christians interpret the Christian god differently.  And what is natural death?  Is dying in a motorcycle crash  or from a gun shot a natural death?


What makes Palin and Miller think they have a monopoly on the Truth?  That they know better than everyone else?  Why has Palin tapped into some clear need among many members of the US public?

First, her elitist language can clearly be seen as taking on the insiders on behalf of the outsiders.  "People who think they are better than anyone else" and who live in the nation's capital and New York (we all know these as power centers) and have parties that people like Sarah Palin aren't invited to are the Insiders.  All the rest of us are outsiders, in our own democracy.   What Palin has done so well, is create her own clique, her own inside, of which she is the center.

Second, is to attack those insiders as not being as smart as they think they are.  Hey, I taught at a university.  I can tell you a lot more than Palin can about PhD's doing dumb things.  I've worked with them up close.  I've done dumb things myself. But I can also offer an explanation of why many PhD's might look dumb at times. 

Howard Gardner came up with the concept of multiple intelligences.  His  basic argument is that IQ is just one of different ways that people can be intelligent.  In 1993 he listed seven intelligences and later added the last one:

• Linguistic Intelligence
• Musical Intelligence
• Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
• Spatial Intelligence
• Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
• Interpersonal Intelligence
• Intrapersonal Intelligence
• Naturalist Intelligence  

You can get his FAQ's regarding multiple intelligence which explains all this with a lot more complexity and nuance.

In his book Extraordinary Minds, Howard Gardner defined intelligence* as

"the ability to solve problems or fashion products that are valued in at least one cultural setting or community."

Of the eight listed above, the linguistic and logical intelligences are those most favored in school examinations. These are the 'smarts' that IQ tests recognize.

But people who have these kinds of intelligences may or may not rank high on the other intelligences - such as interpersonal or bodily-kinesthetic.  We can see 'smart' people, with fancy degrees, who are physically clumsy and awkward and don't read interpersonal signals well. 

So, it is easy for an athlete who barely graduated to make fun of a famous scholar who trips over his shoelaces and is awkward when dealing with the opposite sex.  We all do better in the setting where our best intelligences are rewarded.  

What is critical is that we recognize and appreciate where people are 'smart' and where they aren't.  If I go in for surgery, I want a doctor who has linguistic, logical, and kinesthetic (good eye-hand coordination) intelligence.  If I go to a concert, I expect to hear someone with, minimally, good musical intelligence. 

Sarah Palin, it would seem to me, is shaky in terms of the two key academic intelligences (linguistic and logical-mathematical), but very strong on interpersonal and bodily-kinesthetic.  But people with higher linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, while being able to see Palin's strengths, will judge her more by their own strengths, and thus not be impressed. 

Joe Miller, on the other hand, as a West Point and Yale graduate, has strong linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences.   For some, Miller's elite Ivy League education at Yale might seem to disqualify him in the eyes of  Palin followers because he's clearly part of the elite who got trained in "every leftist radical failed ideology known to man" (from Kathleen McKinley above).

So he's both an elitist insider and all the evil things that means to Palin supporters.  But only people strong in logical-mathematical intelligence get too hung up on consistency of principles from one situation to the next.  Besides, one could argue that he went to Yale as a subversive, to learn what the enemy was teaching.   But Miller hasn't made that point himself to my knowledge.

But he does seem to think he's pretty smart.  As mentioned above, he states his positions with authority and certainty.  There's no question in his mind about his correctness.  Wickersham's Conscience pointed out:

Miller claims he [sic] “He quickly mastered the law.” Shucks, WC has been a lawyer for more than thirty-four years and can’t claim to have “mastered the law.”

A lot of this goes back to Socrates and the notion that a wise man is one who knows what he doesn't know.  I suspect that some of the anger at people with certified intelligence (degrees from elite universities or in respected fields) is aimed at those who assume that their intelligence in their specialized field transfers to other fields.  "Because I have a degree in one field means I must be smart in every other field." 

I think Joe Miller has slipped into this category. He isn't nearly as smart as he thinks he is.  I'm not going to use examples of where I think he's philosophically wrong because those things are impossible to prove.  Instead I'll use more tangible examples, starting with his fiddling with the other attorneys' computers in Fairbanks.   

• He thought he was clever and knew that he could hide his use of the computers by erasing his tracks.  But he didn't know nearly as much as he needed to know and by clearing the caches, he probably caused the discovery of his antics much faster than had he just left the caches alone, because he erased everyone's passwords for databases they used every day.  He was smart enough to know about caches, but not smart enough to know he only knew part of what he needed to know.**

• He also wasn't smart enough to understand that having a private security guard was totally out of the norm in Alaska politics and would make him look silly.**
   
• And he wasn't smart enough to understand that having his body guards handcuff a journalist would resonate poorly.  He probably thought that people would see it as a legitimate blow against the 'lamestream' media.  And his supporters probably do.
   
• And he didn't understand that lying about his departure from the Fairbanks North Star Borough was going to be worse than getting it out of the way early in the campaign.  He seems to have thought that it was protected by personnel rules.  He hasn't been in Alaska long enough to have read about the Supreme Court, in the newspapers, deciding that people applying for high level policy jobs do not have the same privacy rights as regular employees.  And even though he's an attorney, he didn't look it up.

Only when he was up against the wall - with his own words that he lied in the computer incident and that he lied about it in the campaign, exposed - does he acknowledge his wisdom may not be absolute:

Miller has maintained the journalist was acting inappropriately, and he has never disavowed the handcuffing, but he says that other issues in his campaign were the result of naivete.

"Alaskans get to understand that, hey, they're electing someone like them. I've gone through trials, I have not always had a silver spoon, I've had challenges in life," Miller said at a recent debate. (from the Anchorage Daily News)

Naivete.  That just isn't Miller's style.  If he's naive about these things, what about his beliefs concerning the Constitution? 

But he is able to play Palin's outsider theme when he does this.  I'm like you regular Alaskans.  Flawed.  And, implied, an outsider. 

But if you go to the doctor, do you want someone just like you, or do you want some with specialized expertise and skill in medicine?  When you take your car to be repaired, do you want someone like you, or someone getting on-the-job training?

And when you elect someone to the US Senate, do you want someone just like you or someone with expertise and skill in public policy, power, and working with others?  As well as a developed sense of ethics?

I believe that the institution of the Senate forces people to play the game or become irrelevant.  Republicans, in recent years, have been more disciplined in keeping their members in line than the Democrats.  That means Republicans will have a harder time representing their state interests when they conflict with the party interests.

But individuals who use their intelligences well are able to play the game more successfully than others.  Some have the ability to block legislation.  Others can work out deals because they have empathy and can understand other people's needs and values and show respect for people with whom they don't agree.  They have the ability to actually create new legislation that improves people's lives.  No matter what, whoever gets elected to the US Senate becomes an insider compared to most other people.  They are in a club limited to 100 people.  Within that club, it is true, there are also insiders and outsiders. 

I think that's enough for now.  Just a note that this is just one possible line of interpretation of all of this.  I'm trying it out to see how it fits. 


*From the FAQ's Gardner defines intelligences differently:

an intelligence refers to a biopsychological potential of our species to process certain kinds of information in certain kinds of way. As such, it clearly involves processes that are carried out by dedicated neural networks. No doubt each of the intelligences has its characteristic neural processes, with most of them quite similar across human beings. Some of the processes might prove to be more customized to an individual.

The intelligence itself is not a content, but it is geared to specific contents. That is, the linguistic intelligence is activated when individuals encounter the sounds of language or when they wish to communicate something verbally to another person. However, the linguistic intelligence is not dedicated only to sound. It can be mobilized as well by visual information, when an individual decodes written text; and in deaf individuals, linguistic intelligence is mobilized by signs (including syntactically-arranged sets of signs) that are seen or felt.

**A newer story in the Alaska Dispatch cites Fairbanks co-workers saying Miller was paranoid about his personal safety and possible computer attacks on him and even requested a security detail.

Former Anchorage Boy Blogs in NY About Vanity Fair's Palin Story

Marty Beckerman grew up in Anchorage and now lives and works in New York.  Among other things he blogs.  His short piece on The Awl  begins with comments on the Michael Joseph Gross piece in the new VF, then goes on to talk about what it's like to be from Alaska.  [Disclosure:  I knew Marty when he was a kid here in Anchorage, but haven't seen him for a long while. He had a bizarre sense of humor back then and even wrote a book in college and seems to have found someone to pay him to keep writing. The bio says he's written two more books and he's the online features editor at Esquire.]

The new Vanity Fair Sarah Palin profile is enthralling: rage-fueled breakdowns, domestic violence (is there a battered spouse center for First Dudes?) and Madoff-worthy financial manipulation. Equally fascinating is the climate of fear and confusion that Michael Joseph Gross discovered in Wasilla, where townspeople are terrified of discussing their former mayor/governor, and deeply uncomfortable with the world-famous media creation that she has become. "To appreciate how alien Palin has become in Wasilla, how inscrutable to her own people, you have to wrap your mind around the fact that Sarah Palin is more famous than any other Alaskan, ever," Gross writes. "It still does not quite seem real to most Alaskans that there are all these thousands of people in the Lower 48 turning out for … Sarah."

Echoing the fear theme, someone mentioned that Joe McGuiness said that he was surprised at the level of Palinphobia in Wasilla.  Fear seems to be a characteristic of the Republican party in Alaska.  Someone else mentioned good friends who wouldn't contribute to non-partisan candidates because the party would punish them for straying from the fold. 

Below is a paragraph from the actual Vanity Fair article about Palin's tipping habits. 

Palin does not always treat those ordinary people well, however—it depends on who is watching. Of the many famous people who have stayed at the Hyatt in Wichita (Cher, Reba McEntire, Neil Young), Sarah Palin ranks as the all-time worst tipper: $5 for seven bags. But the bellhops had it good in Kansas, compared with the bellman at another midwestern hotel who waited up until past midnight for Palin and her entourage to check in—and then got no tip at all for 10 bags. He was stiffed again at checkout time. The same went for the maids who cleaned Palin’s rooms in both places—no tip whatsoever. The only time I heard of Palin giving a generous tip was in St. Joseph, Michigan, after the owner of Kilwin’s chocolate shop, on State Street, sent a CARE package to Palin’s suite, and Palin walked to the store to say thank you. She also wanted to buy more boxes of candy to take home. When the owner would not accept her money, Palin, encircled by the crowd that had jammed the store to get a glimpse of her, pressed a hundred-dollar bill into the woman’s hand, saying, “This is for the staff.” That Ben Franklin was the talk of State Street the whole rest of the day. 

The whole VF article is here.

Alaska Election Context 3 - How Vulnerable Was Lisa Murkowski?

In Part 1 I looked at looked at Alaska's registered voter rate (apparently 96%).
In Part 2 I looked at the US Senate race and how the primaries work in Alaska.
In this post I'll look at Sen. Lisa Murkowski's background.

[UPDATE Aug 28:  A reader sent me this link to Anchorage attorney Don Mitchell's Huffington Post piece on the same topic, which has the same gist, but gives much richer detail than do I.]

These are thoughts aimed more at non-Alaskans.  Alaskans know all this and will, no doubt, correct me if I misreported anywhere.

Lisa Murkowski was a Republican state legislators with whom Democrats could live and  Republicans had some problems.  She was for women's rights, if not completely pro-choice, friendly, smart, articulate, and not of her father, Senator Frank Murkowski's, generation.  'Environmental' wasn't an epithet to her. 

She won her 2002 reelection to the State House by only 52 votes in the Republican primary  and then faced no opposition in the general election. 

That same year, her father had deciding to leave the Senate and run for Governor of Alaska.  In a January 2008 post speculating why Murkowski might have decided to leave to the Senate to run for governor I wrote:

The oil controlled state legislature passed a bill that said, in case a US Senate seat becomes vacant, the newly elected governor, not the currently sitting governor, makes the appointment. Everyone knew the purpose was to give Murkowski the power to appoint his successor. If this hadn’t passed, retiring governor Tony Knowles would have appointed the next US Senator. But it did pass assuring that, if Murkowki won, he could appoint his daughter. If he lost, he was still in the Senate.

This was settled before he ran for Governor.  Republicans didn't like the idea of a Democrat appointing Murkowski's successor and, given the reaction when he did appoint his daughter to the position, most people hadn't  anticipated that Frank would appoint Lisa. 

Appointing Lisa to the US Senate was the first seriously unpopular act of the new Governor.  Most people thought it was tacky at best, unethical or even illegal at worst.  Rival Republicans for the position were pissed.  The more conservative Republicans were particularly dismayed, while the moderate Republicans were less upset.  Democrats were ambivalent.  They thought it reeked of nepotism, but of all the Republican contenders, Lisa was probably the best in their eyes.

Gov. Murkowski went on to do a lot of things that got everyone mad from cutting benefits to seniors to buying a private jet - with administrative funds when the legislature said no.  (One of Palin's first acts as governor was to announce she was putting the jet on e-bay.)

Since Palin's run for governor knocked off Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary in 2006, there has been no love lost between the Murkowskis and Palin.  As an Alaskan, if I had to pick between  Sarah Palin and Lisa Murkowski to represent my state to the world, it would be Murkowski hands down.

But, when Lisa Murkowski got to the US Senate, she got into a much less flexible Republican majority where she forgot the words 'global climate change' and probably left the room entirely when abortion came up.  She quickly moved into the party leadership by moving way right.  There had always seemed to be a real ideological difference between Murkowski the elder and Murkowski the younger, but that seems to have mostly evaporated.

There was some question about whether Lisa could get elected on her own, but she had no real primary competition in 2004 when she had to run.  In the general election Republicans saw her as the lesser to two evils and united behind her against former Democratic  Gov. Tony Knowles.  At that point, I think, people thought she'd established herself, even if the Republicans didn't love her.

But Palin knew that Murkowski's Republican support was pretty shallow. And there is still a lot of resentment toward her dad and her original appointment.  There was even talk that Palin might run against her.  But then she'd have to take a pay cut and lose some of her spotlight.   But she probably saw this current race as a good opportunity to settle old scores.  Even if Miller hadn't gotten this close, she would be telling Murkowski to watch her back.

Add to that a primary with 25% turnout and a ballot measure on abortion and she was vulnerable. All Miller needed to do was get about 9% of Alaskan voters to vote for him. 

So while this seems to come as a huge surprise, the conditions were ripe for it to happen if the right factors came into play.  And they did.

Epistemology, Palin, Obama, BP, Humpty Dumpty, and the King and I

[Bumper stickers sometimes sum up one's position succinctly.  But the world is complex and everything is ultimately connected.  So I don't apologize for bringing together a lot of disparate points.  But I do apologize for not doing it better.  I do hope that at the very least a few readers think about how they know what they know.]

I had just gotten into my window seat,  my seat belt buckled,, my book out, and my backpack under the seat, when the woman sitting in the aisle seat, after establishing that J has lived in Alaska over 30 years (the woman said she'd been there only ten), asked what J thought about Sarah Palin.

We'd been in Europe for almost a month and we heard that question a lot when people found out we were from Alaska.  In Europe the question almost always had a tinge of snark but also a recognition that perhaps a local could fill in missing details. Just to mess with their stereotypes, I often pointed out that Palin came into our consciousness when she resigned her oil and gas commission seat in protest over ethics (or so we thought at the time) and then went after the sitting Republican governor for closed door meetings with the oil companies and when elected rehired the Natural Resources team that had resigned in protest of Gov. Murkowski's dealings with the big oil companies.  But then I would reassure them that once she got nominated for vp, things changed and we saw a totally different view of Sarah Palin.

So, I was trying to engage my book as J politely, but more heatedly than is her custom, told the lady what she thought.  The lady then defended Palin.  "I went to lunch with her during the campaign and she's wonderful."  Things seemed to be winding down and I was getting back into my book when the lady asked J about Obama.
J:  "I think he's terrific."  
Lady:  "He's not an American you know."
J:  "Of course he is."
Lady:  "He was born in Kenya."
J:  "He was born in Hawaii"
Lady:  "Hawaii was a territory when he was born so even if he was born there he isn't a citizen."  [Hawaii became a state in August 1959.  Obama was born in August 1961.  People born in territories are US citizens anyway.]

I'm usually pretty unflappable, but at the end of traveling five weeks, with lingering cold symptoms, I was planning a quiet trip reading The Future of Life by socio-biologist E. O. Wilson and I totally lost it.  As J was trying to explain that even if Obama had been born in Kenya instead of Hawaii he would still be a US citizen since his mother was an American citizen, words flew out of my mouth - something about not wanting to listen to this bullshit for the next six hours.  That got both their attentions and they agreed to drop the topic as I put in my earplugs.

I immediately thought of a lot of other ways I could have handled it - like asking how she knew everything she claimed to be true, or even agreeing with her and then pushing to see if I could get her to agree that living under a black president meant our way of life was over and other racist garbage.

Epistemology (go here for a more scholarly discussion) is basically the study of how people can determine what is true.  Is it something you just know inside your head or in your gut?  Does it require external verification? If so what sort of verification?  Do different kinds of truths require different sorts of justification?  Knowing you have a headache is different from knowing what causes headaches.  

There's a whole lot of very questionable 'truth' out there these days.  There always has been, but we think in this era of modern technology we should have a much larger proportion of the population rejecting baseless truths or at least harboring some doubts about what they know. But the spurious truths are alive and well including among the supposedly well educated.  I know this because there are so many contradictory realities being claimed as Truth.   How many people actually think about how they know what they know?  

Why does this matter?  I've done a lengthy post on why people should study philosophy before, but this blog is about how we know what we know in the broadest sense and the fact that so many people 'know' totally different truths means to me, more time should be spent on studying how we know what we know.


As I pondered this morning the woman who believed that Obama is Kenyan, the BP officials who assured Congress there was no danger in drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and our Governor demanding that off shore drilling in Alaska proceed this summer to protect jobs, I couldn't help but scratch my head and wonder how these people came to believe these things.  I randomly pulled out a record, put it on the turntable, and as I was finishing my stretches, I heard Yul Brynner singing these 60 year old lyrics:

When I was a boy
World was better spot.
What was so was so,
What was not was not.
Now I am a man;
World have changed a lot.
Some things nearly so,
Others nearly not.
There are times I almost think
I am not sure of what I absolutely know.
Very often find confusion
In conclusion I concluded long ago
In my head are many facts
That, as a student, I have studied to procure,
In my head are many facts..
Of which I wish I was more certain I was sure! [lyrics from allmusicals.com]

(Yes, Oscar Hammerstein gave the King a questionable English, but that doesn't change meaning of the lyrics.)

It's much better put to music in the Youtube (there's no video, just the cover pic) below:
[UPDATE June 5, 2012: The original youtube had been removed so I've replaced it with this one.]
[UPDATE Jan 9, 2013:  The second video went private.  Here's a better one.]


It's a Puzzlement from Andrew MacGregor Marshall on Vimeo.

Why are so few politicians, businessmen, and other anointed experts willing to publicly question what they know?  Do they at least question themselves in private?

Some, I'm sure, really do believe what they say.  I am sure that BP would have done something different had they known their actions would lead to this catastrophic oil spill.  Minor spills are ok - we have them all the time in Alaska, including right now - but the big one in the Gulf, besides hurting BP's bottom line, causes them and other oil companies severe political damage they would rather avoid.  Surely they believed nothing like this would happen.  (I realize that companies routinely calculate the costs of accidents and take risks if they think the gains are greater than the costs, but this one seems beyond that sort of calculation.)

But what kind of person can be so certain about things they don't know?

Hubris plays a role.


Competition is another factor.  Winning is more important than truth for many.  BP officials wanted their project to get approved and so they said what they needed to say.  This overlaps with the next reason.

Self interest also plays a big role.  The 'inconvenient truths" are those that, if we believed them, would require us to change our behavior.  Global climate change threatens many people because they can't imagine how they would live at a lower level of energy consumption.  We ask  soldiers to risk their lives in wars in oil producing countries, but many people aren't willing to make much smaller sacrifices like turning down the thermostat, driving less, or giving up their motorized sports toys.  Believing stories about American superiority, our rights to be free to do whatever we want, or about scientific progress help people avoid having to make adjustments in their lives and in their heads. The consequences of consuming oil are a minor cost for the American way of life.  Large corporations pay their employees well, so they have a stake in toeing the company line. 

Even our governor, while the Gulf of Mexico is bespoiled, sees no reason to delay Shell's drilling in offshore Alaska.  

“The decision to suspend drilling operations in the Arctic Ocean is based on fear, not sound science. Alaskans have experienced firsthand the ravages of an oil spill with the Exxon Valdez in 1989. We never want to repeat that experience, and our hearts go out to Gulf Coast residents suffering from the effects of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. On the other hand, Shell’s proposed exploration plan in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas has been reviewed extensively.

“I simply cannot understand how the federal government could approve plans of exploration only five months ago - approvals that were upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – but now refuse to take the final step in a long regulatory process and not authorize Shell’s permits to drill. Shell’s leases should be extended, and they should be able to continue seeking permits from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 So, the same people that approved the Gulf drilling can be trusted to approve the Chukchi drilling.  This is different, he tells us, because it's shallower.  But it has lots of other issues like severe weather conditions that are unique.  His professed lack of understanding indicates a severe mental limitation.  He may not agree, but certainly he should be able to understand the feds' concerns.   Even the  "Shell officials said they understand the decision and welcome the additional scrutiny the delay brings." [ADN]

(There's lots more in there - the fear and science line for example - to deconstruct, but I'll leave that for others now.)

I don't know through science any more than the governor does, but I do know that the Louisiana politicians were all enthusiastic about drilling in the Gulf for similar reasons and similarly rejected environmental concerns. 

I think that Gov. Parnell, in his heart,  truly believes Chukchi and Beaufort drilling is perfectly safe.  His whole world view privileges big development projects over environmental concerns, includes the idea that conquering nature is man's duty. 

What chemistry of values and knowledge risks such a spill in Alaska waters for those temporary jobs? What brain chemistry can't imagine and create other sorts of ways of respectably supporting one's family? Can dismiss the potential environmental risks?  Can't delay for a year the drilling in light of the Gulf spill?

I too am biased by my world view, but I'm not running for office and I don't have the kind of stake a sitting governor has to his party and to what he thinks the voters want.   I'm still considering  the portrayal  I read in biologist Wilson's book on the plane of two competing realities in the world today.

The economist is focused on production and consumption.  These are what the world wants and needs, he says.  He is right, of course.  Every species lives on production and consumption.  The tree finds and consumes nutrients and sunlight;  the leopard finds and consumes the deer.  And the farmer clears both away to find space and raise corn - for consumption.  The economist's thinking is based on precise models of rational choice and near-horizon time lines.  His parameters are the gross domestic product, trade balance, and competitive index.  He sits on corporate boards, travels to Washington, occasionally appears on television shows.  The planet, he insists, is perpetually fruitful and still underutilized.

The ecologist has a different worldview  He is focused on unsustainable crop yields, overdrawn aquifers, and threatened ecosystems.  His voice is also heard, albeit faintly, in high government and corporate circles.  He sits on nonprofit foundation boards, writes for Scientific American, and is sometimes called to Washington.  The planet, he insists, is exhausted and in trouble. 

Another human inclination - blaming - is also evident in the oil spill.  Does Gov. Parnell not connect the blame going towards the BP officials and their private servants at the Minerals Management Service with himself if a similar accident should occur in Alaska?

Even Obama is getting some blame for not making the oil spill go away. But once something is broken, we can't simply fix it. Some things simply take time.  Just as we can't speed up a pregnancy, once the spill is underway it will take a certain amount of time to play out.  Even with perfect  knowledge and the capacity and  resources on hand to attack something like this, it will still take time.  We don't have anywhere near perfect knowledge, and we have various people withholding information to avoid blame (ie BP official taking the Fifth to avoid testifying), so it will take even longer.

But blaming people transfers responsibility from those who elect the politicians who do big oil's bidding.  We all share responsibility if we drive and fly.  Americans, particularly, use up a lot more resources than others.  Wilson writes:

[T]he average amount of productive land and shallow sea appropriated by each person in bits and pieces from around the world for food, water, housing, energy, transportation, commerce, and waste absorption. . . is about one hectare (2.5 acres) in developing nations but about 9.6 hectares (24 acres) in the United States.  (p. 23)  [An average city lot is about 1/4 of an acre.]

(It would be nice to find  a personal footprint calculator to help people figure out how big a footprint they leave and how to reduce it. Updated Sunday 5/31/10:  Anon offers this link to calculate your ecological footprint in the comments below - and a long discussion of McCain's citizenship questions.  Thanks!!)

It's much easier to prevent environmental disasters from happening than it is to undo them after they happen. As we were taught as children, "All the king's horses and all the king's men, couldn't put Humpty together again." That's why learning to think in the long term with a macro view that connects the seemingly unrelated and to understand epistemology are all important.  (Well, I'm not sure how many people can actually understand epistemology, but at least to understand the questions epistemologists raise.)

So I believe we need to think more about the many ways we endanger the world and take those potential damages seriously, before it's too late. Be more skeptical about what we think is true.  (Are you listening Governor?)  We need to be less certain, less willing to proceed despite potential dangers, more willing to live less luxuriously, and more willing to question those truths 'leaders' tell us when they assure us they know what they are doing.

But that questioning needs to disciplined and reasonable. Not the kind of challenge that claims its own certainty such as those who "know" Obama is a Kenyan Muslim. Rather, we need the kind of questioning that challenges with fact and reason those who believe in projects that support their own well being at great risk to others.

Palin Announces Conversion

Boy was I surprised with this NY Times article:

Sarah Palin announced Thursday morning in Rome that she had converted to Roman Catholicism.  Flanked by the Pope and other Vatican officials, Palin spoke for three minutes and took no questions.   In her statement, Palin discussed the importance of tradition and ritual and the solemnity of the majestic robes worn by the clergy.  Vatican watchers were quick to speculate that this move might help to distract from the growing unrest about the Pope's possible  mishandling of pedophile priests.  Will Sarah Palin bring to the Catholic Church what she brought to the Republican Party? 

Palin followers were taken by surprise and some questioned how Palin had found the time to study Catholic doctrine and why she would make such a move just as her celebrity career was taking off.   Usually unreliable sources reported that she will spend the next three months at an unnamed convent.   A spokesman for the Wasilla Assembly of God did not respond to emails or voice messages.   A malleable source in the White House would only say that the President wished the best for Palin and no decisions had been reached on how to repay the Pope.  

Meanwhile,  a Palin Vanity Fair cover has appeared on the internet.

Putting Up, Taking Down, and Taking Off

University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) art professor, Mariano Gonzales, has a show at Alaska Pacific University (APU) which asks the question "Why are Americans still dying in the Middle East?" and asks visitors to put up their answers on a large white poster. According to Phil at Progressive Alaska, apparently this has embarrassed the President of APU who got his own paper to write a response. No, the question isn't neutral, but for those who believe those deaths are serving an important purpose, Professor Gonzales offered a big piece of paper to convince the world they are right.

War does set up a dilemma. People generally justify their enlisting to patriotic reasons - for those who aren't drafted - and then when they die, their families have the choice of believing their soldier died a hero or died in vain (or worse.) For most, that choice is easy. Even if it doesn't match reality. Anything that challenges that choice pushes a very strong emotional button.

Alaska Report blogger Dennis Zaki reports in an email that he keeps having problems with people using his photos without permission. I've written a bit here about photos and copyrights. It seems Dennis got ticked off enough with Dan Fagan for putting up his (Dennis') pictures without permission that he got Fagan's website (the Alaska Standard) suspended for a bit until the offending picture was taken down. Here's what I got when I went to Alaska Standard on Wednesday.


The site was back up when I checked on Thursday.

A final brief note. I saw in the LA Times yesterday a short piece on Levi Johnston's deal with Playgirl to take off his clothes. I'm a little sheltered here in the big city so I hadn't seen this bit of 'news' when it hit the ADN. With all the free nudes available on line, we know that Playgirl isn't just paying him for skin shots, but for Palin related skin shots. Let's see now - abstinence only education leads to teenage moms leads to teenage dad getting paid to pose nude. Isn't America great?

Alaskan Bloggers Are Everywhere

I was reading an LA Times Magazine article this morning over breakfast about the Santa Monica based blog Hullabalu. The article says,

But the Left's second most influential blogger prefers anonymity.

They say the Huffington Post is number one. (The author, Jesse Kronbluth is a HP contributor) I have to confess that that while Digby sounds vaguely familiar, I didn't recognize it when I checked it out. I checked it out because of this:

What could Sarah Palin do to win your endorsement?
I went to high school in Alaska and met my husband there, so I do feel a bit of kinship with Palin. But she'd have to disavow every political stand she's ever taken, denounce McCain, quit the Republican party and become a pro-choice advocate for me to endorse her. I do enthusiastically endorse Alaskan king salmon.

So I checked out the blog and she had a very good post on the Republican attack strategy that so crippled the Clinton administration with a video on how the Republicans are already preparing to fight the election with their Acorn voter fraud nonsense.

I have to say that for years, as a public administration professor, I got the annual report of Acorn. They've worked pretty quietly on projects to help develop community in low income neighborhoods and to improve the chances of poor people to take part in the American dream. Registering such people doesn't endear them to Republicans. Here's the video she has on today's post. It offers a version of this story much more consistent with my limited experience with Acorn.

The Emperor's New Clothes - Kathleen Parker Blows the Whistle

From The Emperor's New Clothes

None of the Emperor's clothes had ever met with such success.

But among the crowds a little child suddenly gasped out, "But he hasn't got anything on." And the people began to whisper to one another what the child had said. "He hasn't got anything on." "There's a little child saying he hasn't got anything on." Till everyone was saying, "But he hasn't got anything on." The Emperor himself had the uncomfortable feeling that what they were whispering was only too true. "But I will have to go through with the procession," he said to himself.

So he drew himself up and walked boldly on holding his head higher than before, and the courtiers held on to the train that wasn't there at all.

Talk of the Nation interviewed a conservative little boy, Kathleen Parker, today. The audio will be available at 2pm Alaska time at this link.
[Update: Audio here.]

Talk of the Nation, September 29, 2008 · In her article, "The Palin Problem," columnist Kathleen Parker writes that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is clearly out of her league. Parker says Palin should bow out of the race to save the GOP's chances in 2008.

"McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate." Parker writes. " ... Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves."

She also talks about the viciousness of the attacks she's getting from conservatives.