The Mudflats

Here we go with chapter two. (Deep breath)

Page 63
First sentence – “When I first got into Wasilla city politics, I wasn’t even sure how to pronounce the mayor’s name.” So, what do you suppose the mayor’s name was? Wojciechowski? Finnbogadottir? No, actually it was Stein. Pronounced the regular way. John Stein.

You know… like FrankenSTEIN, or beer STEIN, STEINway, STEINbeck…   And John.  Like McCain.

Nick Carney got her into politics. He was a snooty golfer and didn’t wear duct-taped bunny boots. Recruited her to run for City Council. (Thanks a lot, Nick.)

Page 64
Group Watch on Wasilla was looking for “progressive” candidates. Back in those days it didn’t mean librul. She took it in “the more common sense spirit of “progressing” our young city by providing the tools for the private sector to grow and prosper.”

She ran for office going door to door pulling her kids on a sled.

Page 65
Wasilla needed a police department and they had to pay for it with either a property tax or a sales tax. She went for a “fairer and more optional” sales tax even though she didn’t want it. Got her in bad with Republicans who hear the word tax and assumed she wanted it. Tax passed.

Didn’t get along with old white guys in the city council. They wanted to talk about regulating how many children someone could babysit in their home at one time, and whether they ought to allow flashing signs and spinning barber poles. Valley residents are not “master-planned-community kind of people.” They don’t need no stinking rules, or zoning.

Page 66
Wasilla is the duct tape capital of the world. That means they’re all anti-government libertarians because they do everything themselves.

They wanted to pass a rule stating that residents of a particular subdivision had to pay for garbage removal. She voted no because she was “on the side of the people and preserve their freedom so that Wasilla could progress, and not restrict opportunities.”

Her fiscal conservatism kicked in. No raise for the mayor. But it happened anyway. (Hmmm. Wonder if she’ll mention the $50,000 redo of the mayor’s office when she was there?)

Page 67
Went into labor with Willow on the Fourth of July while kayaking. “I so wanted a patriotic baby that I paddled as hard as I could to speed up the contractions, but she held out until the next day.” (Ah yes, patriotic acceleration of childbirth. So very normal and healthy.)

Willow was “raised on Todd’s hip” for a few years.

She cut a commercial at a radio station for a local politician while breast-feeding Willow to keep her quiet. Pretended not to notice that anyone was shocked.

Page 68
Spent two hours on Xmas eve with kids all over the place and Todd signaling her to wrap it up, on the phone with some guy about the sewer system. Took it as proof that she really cared about her job. (Head bang)

Providence with a capital P took her to the governor’s mansion (metaphorically, since she wasn’t actually there much) and the VP trail.

Page 69
It’s time for the unpronounceable “John Stein” to be re-elected. Some guy told him he wasn’t impressed with his “public management” degree because “the public doesn’t need to be managed!”

Page 70
The unpronounceable John Stein wanted things like land use restrictions and building codes. She decided to run against him to protect Wasilla from big government. “As every Iditarod musher knows, if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes.” (More bumper sticker wisdom)

She ran again, this time with Track and Bristol in a wagon and Willow in a back pack. She promised to take a pay cut, and Todd was not happy with this.

Page 71
Someone told her she would never win because she had 3 small kids. This made the “Mama bear” rise up in her and made her more determined to win. (That makes no sense I can decipher. Anyone?) She won the election.

Page 72
Nobody welcomed her into the mayors office and told her what to do. Everyone disliked her for various reasons because they were all older than her, and she had run against someone they liked, etc. They all stared at her with their arms crossed and defied her to make them work for her. She wanted a team and they wanted no part of it. She fired the museum curator because she wasn’t needed.

Page 73
She asked everyone to write a letter of resignation so she could keep it on file for the future just in case she ever wanted to replace them. Most people didn’t want to do that and got bent out of shape. She knew then that they wouldn’t be team players.

Nick Carney launched a recall effort because she was too inexperienced. Accused her of taking the pay cut to shoehorn herself into a lower tax bracket. “Hmmmmm, I thought, wish I’d thought of that.” (So, she would have done what they accused her of if she had thought of it??)

Slams police chief, for taking an aerobics class… (?) Wants him to cut his budget and he says it can’t be done.

Page 74
The thing in her office that everyone thought was a fancy marble desk was just an old kitchen table that she was rescuing from her kids drawing on it with Sharpie markers.

A woman came to her office and said she was praying for her daughter who got caught smoking pot. It wasn’t her daughter it was “another nearby mayor who did have a teenage daughter who may have been smoking weed.” (Weed?)

Page 75
She was horrified at the prayer chain gossip mill that repeated this rumor that she is repeating in the book. She learned later that there are people who win prestigious awards for believing unsubstantiated rumors and telling other people about them. (eye roll)

She couldn’t go to her favorite coffee place when she was pregnant with Piper because the smell of smoke nauseated her. But she didn’t look to push through legislation banning smoking in restaurants. She just stopped going and the cafe just magically became smoke-free all on its own, which is how it all should magically work out every time.

She continued to go to the shooting range when she was pregnant with Piper.

Page 76
Her friends threw her a baby shower for Piper at the shooting range, with a cake the shape of an airplane. Piper’s middle name is Indi for “Independence.” (AIP anyone?) Starts railing on Anne Kilkenny whose letter about Sarah Palin to her friends went viral on email and was posted at numerous sites on line. Calls her a “Birkenstock-and-granola Berkeley grad.” She was friends with the evil town librarian and the police chief with whom Palin was “mixing it up.”

Page 77
Talks about the completely random and absolutely totally hypothetical conversation with the librarian about banning books, because she was just innocently curious what the librarians policy might be if, let’s say, someone might hypothetically want to keep certain hypothetical books from being in the library. (Pastor, I am Gay anyone?) Just tryin’ to make conversation. And then because of the local media who refused to report the story correctly, the library board all wore black arm bands in protest of her. And here she was expecting cake. Bummer.

Page 77
Talks about feeling like the mayor of Peyton Place. Cut taxes. Lots of taxes. Cut cut cut. New conservatives worked with her. Soon Wasilla was open for giant box stores like Fred Meyer and a WalMart Super store. Plus she built the giant sports complex.

Page 78
“Issues multiplied” with the police chief and she fired him after he “forced her hand.” She didn’t know how to fire him and nobody else did either. He sued her on the grounds that he fired her for “sexual discrimination” because he must have thought that he intimidated her because he was a big man and she was a small woman. (Perhaps this is because that is what she SAID, but I quibble…)

The unpronounceable John Stein wanted to run against her again. He called her a cheerleader. “A cheerleader? I thought. Come on, don’t insult cheerleaders like that. I was just a jock and a I couldn’t hold a candle to their pep and coordination.”

***************head bang/cold water on face break**************

Page 80
John Stein referred to her as a Spice Girl and a female reporter wanted to commiserate with her and milk the sexist comment for all it was worth. But Sarah said no. We simply have to rise above the fray and work twice as hard to look half as capable as men think they are. “Then I gave her a wink and whispered the old familiar punchline, “Thankfully, it’s not that difficult.” (Would that not be…a reverse sexist insult? Just askin.)

Page 81
9/11 – Where would be hit next? The Alaska pipeline? She monitored things from her Wasilla office. Later she prayed for the victims.

Her parents traveled to NYC later to help. They got a temp job with the USDA Wildlife Services keeping predators and pests away from the landfill as detectives searched for remains at the Fresh Kills landfill. (I DID NOT WANT TO KNOW THAT!!!)

Page 82
“Alaskans were just coming off eight years of a Democrat governor, Tony Knowles. Knowles was quite liberal – he was later considered by President Barack Obama for a cabinet position.” (Ah, the DemocrAT party again. She really has no interest at all in any of them.)

Talks about Stevens, Murkowski (Frank) and Don Young as being the strongest congressional delegation in the country bringing in more federal money per capita to Alaska than any other state did. But she argues against that notion. Alaska should be a giver, not a taker.

Page 83
Home life was busy. Todd was building their new house. They were moving. They had three kids plus a new baby. Todd worked on the Slope. The kids were playing sports. She was coaching. She was the mayor. Todd was preparing for the Iron Dog snowmachine race. And she decided to run for Lt. Governor.

She wrote a contemplative prayer in her journal, and “somehow I knew that God was working on something significant ahead in our small-town life, and I felt myself seeking something ahead.”

Page 84
Those running against her didn’t have “executive experience” only legislative experience. And experience doesn’t count anyway. If she won for Lt. Governor, she joked, “Frank Murkowski wouldn’t need a food tester.” (Neither would John McCain)

Disses Karl Marx.

Page 85
Free market principles. Conservative fiscal policies. “National leaders have a responsiblity to respect the Tenth Amendment and keep their hands off the states.” The old Jeffersonian view. (*Note to Sarah Palin. It was also Thomas Jefferson who was part of the Democratic Republican party which was shortened to DemocratIC party. So, a little respect for Jefferson please.)

Page 86
Everyone else was “be-bopping” all over the state raising money and she only had $40,000. She didn’t like asking for money. “There were times when I thought, You know what I could really use? A wife. (How about a personal assistant, while you’re busy not being sexist.) She didn’t have a fire in the belly and ran a lackluster campaign.

Page 87
Todd’s mother was running to replace her as mayor, even though Sarah thought their parents were “too smart and too nice” to get into politics. (Meaning she’s mean & stupid? Hey, I didn’t say it) And the evil unpronounceable John Stein was thinkng about running for mayor, so she decided that she’d recruit somebody else and support them. She did this WITHOUT TELLING TODD that she was basically working against his mother. Then the candidate spilled the beans, Todd found out. “I was busted,” she said. Todd called her two-faced, but really she just wanted to save Wasilla from the libruls and she didn’t think Faye could win.

Page 88
An uncomfortable recounting of a back and forth arguement between Sarah and Todd. She’s “two-faced” and unsupportive. He’s always tinkering in the garage. bla bla bla. She admitted that she was wrong and self-centered. She lost the Lt. Governor’s race.

Page 89
She will not make the mistake of running an apathetic campaign again. (Again?)

Worked on electing Murkowski. Did whistle-stop tour with Ted Stevens. “Emerald green mountains plunging straight down into brilliant blue waters surrounded by picturesque fishing villages…glacier-covered mountains forming a spine that juts down the coast. Communities ringed by green islands rising out of waters that house whales and copious sea life, tidewater glaciers and the towering trees of Chugach National Forest” (Paging Mr. Shatner!)

Page 90
After Murkowski won, he had to appoint a replacement to his Senate seat. She wasn’t sure if she felt comfortable being on the short list, not being sure she’d fit in to a group that required loyalty to a party machine. “I didn’t know if there was room for one more maverick on Capitol Hill.” But national service was appealing.

Page 91
Interview with Frank Murkowski for Senate job. Says he looks like an insurance salesman, and picked a controversial Attorney General who left in a cloud of scandal. (Gee, THAT sounds familiar, doesn’t it?)

Page 92
Murkowski tells her political life is tough on kids. What would she do with her kids? She didn’t understand HOW BRUTAL political life in DC is on kids. She knew she didn’t get the job. She would have gotten it if it weren’t for him being all kind and worrying about her and her family. Oh, well. She was sad for seven seconds, then went to a basketball game. Excellent post on this page at Henkimaa – HERE.

Page 93
Frank Murkowski gave the senate seat to his daughter, who had two young kids. He made her chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission filling the seat to be occupied by a member of the public.

Page 94
Target – Randy Ruedrich, head of the state GOP and the commissioner from the petroleum industry. Ruedrich is bad and corrupt. She was accused of “being in bed” with the oil industry (Todd) He’s not management, “he actually works.”

Page 95-97
Still slamming Ruedrich. He was doing campaign work on his state time and computer. She wasn’t allowed to talk about it.

Page 98
Sarah as whistleblower. “If I die, I die.” (Nice Biblican reference again. I’m sure it will be back later.)

Page 99
Ruedrich was gone and she wanted to speak publicly. The public had a right to know what went on. (Wow. A love of transparent government… What happened THERE?) She prayed and then quit. (Interesting)

Page 100
Praises and then slams Hollis French.

Here we go. Mike Wooten.
Her sister Molly who was perfect, was swept off her feet by him. He’d been married and divorced twice, filed for bankruptcy and had infidelity issues, none of which she knew about.

Page 101
Addresses the glowing and effusive letter of recommendation she wrote for Mike Wooten while she was serving as mayor. “Mike asked me to write him a recommendation for the Alaska STate Trooper Academy, ans I did for lots of people applying for different programs and scholarships.” That’s it.

Goes through the laundry list of Wooten stuff. Drunk driving, threatening her dad, tasing the stepson. And remarkably brings up the shooting of a moose illegally but does not mention her dad was with him, and was the one who butchered it and doled it out to the family.

Page 102
“This sad family episode would later be twisted and used as a political weapon against me and John McCain.”

(AAAAARGH! The spin is making me nauseous.)

Page 103
“There was a longing inside me that winter, a sense of purpose hovering just beyond my vision. Was it ambition? I didn’t think so. Ambition drives; purpose beckons. Purpose calls.” (Sudden urge to brush my teeth.)

Page 104
God opens doors. She vowed to seek those open doors. Women are looked at badly for looking for doors.

End of Chapter Two, and this endless endless book is now 1/4 over. Oy.