More on Palin

I have to say that while I’m pretty excited about McCain choosing Sarah Palin as VP, that still doesn’t mean I’ll vote for him. Though you couldn’t get me to vote for Barack Obama if you had a gun to my head, McCain hasn’t exactly proven his trustworthiness, particularly when it comes to conservative principles.

I may be alone soon, though, because folks are turning, and quickly; the video of her firing off an AK certainly tickled folks in this household. Tom’s remarks are my favourites thus far, though (note: positive reference toward Dr. Paul from Mrs. Palin). You’ll see why. Also, he points out that David Frum doesn’t like her, which is a great sign for actual conservatives.

Things have suddenly gone from resigned and frustrated to very interesting, haven’t they? Aside from our capital “L” Libertarian friends, for whom no ticket other than T. Jefferson-R. Paul will work…seems to me there are some fireworks about all of a sudden.

Still, Palin is a likeable lady. Let’s learn a little more about her.

First of all, it appears that violent, meat-eating, fur-wearing barbarians are already all-out for Palin. *cough*

Both Politico and American Thinker are preparing you for the inevitable attacks against Palin. The latter provides especial information about the controversy regarding the firing of a man who refused to fire her sister’s ex; the ex reportedly threatened to shoot Mrs. Palin’s father, vaguely threatened the governor, and fired a Taser at Palin’s 11-year-old nephew. Learn more about the ex here (wink & a smile to QandO).

(A couple more stories here, here, and here.)

American Thinker has also gathered quite a collection of goodies from Investor’s Business Daily that has a whole bunch of information for you; IBD has been watching Palin for a while. Comments there are interesting too…

A little more here…

A 2006 profile of Palin from the New York Times, during her gubernatorial run.

An obvious strike is that as Mayor of Wasilla, Palin racked up $3,000 in debt per resident — $20 million in total! — for “improvements”. This we need to learn more about, though I will say…it’s Alaska. My former client did a shoot up in Alaska several years ago, and the stories the producers and creatives brought back were…ah…scary. Not happy, but we’ll have to investigate.

While mayor, though, she did cut property taxes by 60% and spurred the city’s economic growth (funny how that works, eh, leftists?). That’s certainly not a bad thing…who wouldn’t like to see their property taxes drop by 60%?

*still looking*

This, perhaps?

Wasilla’s growth was taking off, and Palin pushed for bonds to build sewer, water and roads. New big-box stores wanted to be in the city so they could get sewer, water and police protection, even if it meant being annexed. Palin’s city was not necessarily an aesthetic crown jewel, especially along the Parks Highway, but the long snake of stores was doing good business. Sales tax revenues grew by half a million dollars a year. Much of the revenue was coming from people who lived outside the town.

Palin was able to cut property taxes by three-quarters while eliminating small taxes such as the personal property tax and the business inventory tax. She wasn’t doing this by shrinking government, however: The cost of running the growing city, apart from capital projects and debt, rose from $3.9 million in fiscal 1996 to $5.8 million in fiscal 2002. Excess sales tax revenues went to paying for capital improvements such as roads and government buildings, says city finance director Ted Leonard.

That can’t be good, but what was the rate of inflation for those years?

Palin had priorities. She shrank the local museum’s budget and deterred talk of a new library and city hall. But she also put in bike paths and obtained funds for storm-water treatment to protect the area’s many lakes. She successfully pushed a half-percent sales tax increase to build a $15 million multi-use indoor ice arena. The popular sports complex is not breaking even, as its advocates projected, but the city’s subsidy has been cut from $600,000 to $125,000 a year.

I’d much rather have seen the bike paths and ice arena paid for by private companies whose names could have been used as sponsors. Ditto for the lake protection, as well…

A like-minded majority on the city council smoothed her way. That’s not to say her six years as mayor went smoothly, especially at first.

After turning out the three-term incumbent, Palin brought in an outside attorney, with city funds, to advise on the transition. She asked for resignation letters from six top department heads, saying they’d signed a letter supporting their former boss. She fired two of them — the police chief and the museum director — but within a year two others had quit. With the local newspaper, the Frontiersman, upset about the uproar, a citizens group started meeting to discuss a recall of the new mayor. The idea was eventually dropped.

Well, I can’t spend the whole night searching. We’ll see.

Read up on her, but for the most part…she seems to be a likable conservative. Not perfect, but no one will be, really (remember…we even had our problems with Ronaldus Maximus from time to time…). Overall, I think we can be pretty happy.