Received several E-mails from relatives and friends in Alaska and one thing is clear, she's got something about her that the people who know her really like.
She has an 85% approval rating, which includes quite a few liberals. Here's the most interesting thing: my brother in law and his girlfriend, both professionals, a geologist and a chemist, NPR listening, die-hard liberals .... but gun owners, quite like the woman. They don't like her social conservatism, "it's so prevalent in Alaska that we hardly notice it", but that is to be expected.
What they like is that she took out Frank Murkowski, cancelled his secret backroom deals, sold the Governor's private jet and told the oil companies to wait in line. They like that she is giving checks from the surplus to every Alaskan to help pay for the astronomically rising costs of heating oil. They see her as a down-to-earth, post-partisan problem solver. Others may as well.

Her western state appeal imo is an amalgam of clean government credentials, a libertarian streak, the myth of the frontier, a liberal dash of down home realism and of course sex appeal. That is a potent combination.

I watched this interview last year at the US Embassy in Beijing while waiting for an appointment. What a mad-house that place has being for the last couple of years.

http://www.charlierose.com/guests/sarah-palin


"Vegetarian: Native American word for bad hunter."

Good Shooting
T.C.
The Green Isle