2006 Alaska Gubernatorial Debate w/Palin, Halcro and Knowles

Jill, a few days ago someone in the comments section posted alink to a link to that 2006 debate and I watched it. This was my comment after watching it for over an hour :

"She engages in much more generalization than in specifics. She is willing to be combative. She has a persuasive personality - when she chooses to use it. I have the sense she gears many of the views she expresses to what she thinks the audience wants to hear. She believes that all Alaskan resources (including wildlife and land) should be under sole control of Alaska without ANY federal influence. She believes that if a girl or woman becomes pregnant against her will i.e. as the victim of rape or incest, she should have NO legal recourse to terminating the pregnancy.

Now... that last is a complete and decisive deal-breaker for me. It's especially ironic she is a member of the party which used to hold itself up as the example of small, non-interfering govt. - which of course we know is utterly untrue. Still, my main beef with this person is her ideology and her inexperience, and not her family soap opera. I think she is another of those republicans who will be good at campaigning - but bad at governing - at least at the high level for which she was chosen. So yes, I'm learning more about her, and while this has increased my respect in one sense, it has also reinforced my opposition, mainly on grounds of extreme ideology and ill-preparedness for the position."

Jspencer - thanks - I didn't see the link until today on that Ohio blog I mention - apologies to the TMV commenter who provided it too.

I agree with pretty much everything you've written here. I smile as I think, she is an example of how easy it is to choose principle over gender. What would make it less easy for me is if she had a history of working to improve the environment for all women to pursue their ambitions the way she has. Our society is still horribly unable to give all women an equal playing field with all men - and of course, not even all men have an equal field either.

But I still feel that women, overall, have it far worse in terms of ambition pursuits.

Thanks.

"She believes that if a girl or woman becomes pregnant against her will i.e. as the victim of rape or incest, she should have NO legal recourse to terminating the pregnancy. "

Only a fraction of the public wants abortion 100% legal. (They are less extremist than those who want it not only always legal but provided by government.) Even if Palin believes this (she has many like her in absolute numbers but not relative to the complete electorate), she'll never see a federal prohibition on all abortions. (In a truly constitutional federal republic we'd have no federal abortion laws and never see federal provision of abortions -- complete neutrality and an absence of the federal government into what are properly state and local issues to be legislated by state and local governments as they see fit.) She'll accomodate the wishes of others just as other religious right-types have done before.


http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/aborlaws.htm


[Note: There is nothing wrong with parental notification and consent laws, and as for counseling laws, I think they are silly, and a lightweight restraint short of a restriction or ban, but are equally silly and notorious in the case of gun purchases.]

As for

"She believes that all Alaskan resources (including wildlife and land) should be under sole control of Alaska without ANY federal influence."

Westerners for _decades_ have resented "lockup" of resources by the federal government and the colonialist nature of this and other treatment of the West by Washington, DC. (Don't people remember the 1982 book, "The Angry West," by Lamm and McCarthy?)


http://www.nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/p...


One more note on Alaska secessionists: Disenchantment with Washington has existed for decades. Both Alaska and Hawaii were made states in large part due to widespread disenchantment with how they were being treated by Washington prior to statehood. In the case of Alaska, there was sentiment for, among other things, becoming part of Canada in the hope of being treated better than they currently were. Note also that nobody says much about agitation even today for Hawaiian independence, nor for Puerto Rican independence, presumably because it's okay if their proponents are politically correct and the "right" people are bashing Washington for the "right" reasons.

"Only a fraction of the public wants abortion 100% legal. "

A suitably small fraction wants abortion 100% _illegal_, and doesn't merit panic.


Always legal, 18%
Mostly legal, 38%

Mostly illegal, 27%
Always illegal, 13%


http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/933.pdf

"Our society is still horribly unable to give all women an equal playing field with all men - and of course, not even all men have an equal field either."

1. Obama wants to pursue the "Equal Pay" campaign. (Same job, I have no problem with it; trying to arbitrarily classify various vocations as "equal" to others is nonsense, a form of "command economy" and political distortion of the economy.)

2. If times have changed since it was tried before: Why not another attempt at an Equal Rights amendment? Could even be expanded to sexual preference and race explicitly.

3. Substitute: Amend discrimination laws to include women (and sexual preference) explicitly.

4. Don't neglect other things, that even conservatives support, such as financial aid to education.