"What do you think about Sarah Palin?"
I first heard this question a week and a half ago after returning from a pre-orientation backpacking trip. Having missed John McCain's announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate, I was utterly baffled as to why anyone would care about my governor.
Since then, conversations about Sarah Palin have been unavoidable. While I am getting used to my friends and acquaintances soliciting my opinion on this matter, it amazes me how many times I have been at the bank, buying alcohol, or doing something else that involves showing my Alaska driver's license, only to have a complete stranger ask me: "So...what do you think about your governor?"
I understand that most people know very little about Sarah Palin. This is understandable. Up until two weeks ago, her biggest claim to fame was serving for two years as the governor of one of the most remote, least populated states in the union. (Or maybe it was winning Miss Congeniality in the Alaska Pageant years and years ago).
Many people assume that being from Alaska, I must know something about her and can enlighten them. The problem, however, is that Palin was elected governor long after I began spending the majority of my time at Bowdoin, and we all know about the Bowdoin Bubble.
In the first bleary hours after returning from the pre-o trip, all I could think about was a hot shower, comfortable bed, and fresh food. Instead, people kept demanding that I make an intelligent political assessment of Palin. The only thing I could sincerely say was that I didn't agree with a lot of her political positions (I remembered that I voted against her in the last election), but that I did think it was cool that a small-town girl from Alaska could be a candidate for Vice President of the United States. Suddenly my state mattered, which was pretty exciting.
I knew that she was socially conservative, but a little research revealed the extent of this. Palin supports abstinence-only education and is against explicit sex education in schools. She opposes same-sex marriage and believes that spousal benefits are reserved for married citizens as defined in the Alaska state constitution. (To be fair, though, as governor Palin did uphold a state court ruling that conflicted with her own beliefs on this issue; she earns points in my book for this).
Palin is pro-life and supports abortion only in cases where the mother's life is in danger. She does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has supported legislation to outlaw late-term abortions and require parental consent for abortions in Alaska.
Furthermore, Palin's stance on energy and environmental issues worries me. She supports drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. She does not think that climate change can be linked to human activities, and has led the efforts in a lawsuit aiming to get the polar bear de-listed as a threatened species.
Recently, Alaska has earned an enormous surplus from oil royalties buoyed by high prices. At the same time, residents of the state are struggling to pay astronomical heating and transportation costs. Rather than use the surplus to develop alternative energy sources or long-term plans to deal with heating and transportation costs, the Palin administration supported a plan to give every Alaskan a one-time check of $1,200.
Most importantly, Palin seriously lacks experience. It is not that she's young or that she is a woman, it is that a year and a half as governor of Alaska does absolutely nothing to prepare you for work in the federal government. Furthermore, her tenure as governor has occurred during a time when the state has experienced huge windfalls from rising oil prices and faced few truly challenging decisions. She was under-qualified when she ran for governor. Her election pretty much amounted to being in the right place at the right time; she was a vibrant personality running against an immensely unpopular incumbent. Before that she was mayor of Wasilla, which is smaller than Brunswick. In Wasilla the city manager actually makes most of the executive decisions, not the mayor. This all adds up to very little experience in government at all, and pretty much no foreign policy experience (unless you count her involvement in talks about an Alaska-Canada natural gas pipeline). I do think that Washington needs fresh perspectives, but the idea that Sarah Palin could be next in line to govern our country terrifies me.
I do have respect for Sarah Palin. She was elected governor of Alaska on a platform of cleaning up our good-old-boy system of politics. For the most part, she has done an excellent job of reforming a political system rife with nepotism, cronyism, and expensive "gifts" from oil companies. She also has done a pretty good job of getting around the state and talking with her constituents. This is why Alaska is a good place for her. The White House? I don't think so. It is easy to get caught up in the Cinderella story of a small-town girl from Alaska making it to the White House. We all should remember, though, that the story doesn't end on Inauguration Day.
Gavenus is a resident of Homer, Alaska and a member of the Class of 2009.