Stunning Troopergate Fallout!
Alaskan First Dude shows up among the smalltown guntoters of battleground New Hampshire the same day as the shocking news that he aided and abetted his wife’s heinous ethics violations up north. Earnest hardscrabble Yankee backwoodsmen pepper Todd Palin with questions … about snowmobiles. Boston Herald:
FREMONT, N.H. - The swirl of controversy around Alaskan First Dude Todd Palin vanished in a puff of snowmobile exhaust yesterday as the vice presidential candidate’s husband was greeted as a hero at a festival in a cow pasture here yesterday morning.
“I’ve been a fan for a long time,” said Erik Frigon, 35, of South Portland, Maine, at the New Hampshire Snowmobile Association’s annual Grass Drags and Water Crossing event. Like most attendees, he “talked sleds,” not politics with Palin, a champion snowmobiler who has won Alaska’s 2,000-mile Tesoro Iron Dog race four times.
Palin appeared under a bright sun and surrounded by tens of thousands of snowmobile enthusiasts just a few hours after the Alaska Legislature reported that Gov. Sarah Palin violated state ethics laws when she tried to have her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper, removed from the force. Todd Palin led the charge against the trooper, the state investigators found.
The McCain campaign said the report is politically motivated and that Todd Palin would not answer questions from the media yesterday.
Palin kicked off the races with brief remarks from the announcer’s booth, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.
“One thing is for sure,” Palin said. “Voters across America from here in New Hampshire all the way to Alaska are looking for change in how business is done in Washington, and I can say I can’t blame them.”
Todd Palin, an oil worker and fisherman, has brought a touch of blue-collar glamour to the GOP campaign trail, where he is a popular figure. Tom Thomson, a member of McCain’s state leadership team, told The Associated Press he urged the campaign to bring Palin to Fremont.
“It’s a great honor for New Hampshire’s snowmobiling community,” said Thomson. “People respond to him. They love his wife, too.”
Wearing Levi’s jeans and a plaid shirt and accompanied by New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu, Palin stayed at the Brookvale Pines Farm festival for about two hours, watching snowmobilers race across grass and water and signing autographs.
“I’ve always admired him,” said Robert G. Davis, 55, a champion snowmobiler from Eagle Lake, Maine. “He has four world records and he’s an excellent long-distance rider.”
Nice shades, Dude. They should get that guy out in the sunlight more.
Curiously, while the Herald reports that the only ‘gate the snowmobilers cared about was the starting one, and the McCain camp corked Trooper-obsessed scribblers, embittered pen-toting Obama-clinging AP avoids any nuance and simply reports:
FREMONT, N.H. - Campaigning in New Hampshire on Saturday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s husband refused to comment on a legislative report in Alaska that found she violated state ethics laws, with his help.
…
Todd Palin would not answer questions about the report, which said Sarah Palin abused her power by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.
Doesn’t say who was asking.
Portsmouth Herald rubs shoulders with the hillfolk … as well as a bunch of Masshole flatlanders … and reports First Dude’s stumping isn’t changing any views:
Todd Palin finally mentioned the presidential election over a loudspeaker as he gave the signal to racers to start their engines. “I’ve traveled all the way from Alaska and I know it will be worth the trip,” Palin said of watching the races Saturday, which are essentially drag races on a grass track. “You all have an exciting day planned. But before we get started, I must mention that it’s not an accident that I’m here in New Hampshire.”
Palin told the crowd that his wife and McCain will change the way business is done in Washington and urged them to support the ticket at the polls next month. “They’ve done more than just talk about change, they’ve delivered it,” Palin told the crowd.
Most people at the annual event in Fremont said Palin’s presence there would not impact their vote.
Peter Hanson, a Republican from Belmont, said that while he was already planning to support the McCain-Palin ticket, he was glad that Todd Palin was a snowmobile enthusiast. An issue facing snowmobile riders is the potential closure of trails in Yellowstone National Park and, with Palin’s wife in the White House, Hanson said he feels confident the trails would remain open.
Palin attended the local snowmobile race with a friend from Alaska, Martin Buser, a four-time winner of the Iditarod dog sled race. Buser has been a vocal supporter of Sarah Palin since her nomination.
Chris Ferragamo of Winchendon, Mass., was racing in the grass drags Saturday and said Palin’s presence helped draw attention to his sport. While Ferragamo said he is still an undecided voter, and that Palin’s presence at the local event wouldn’t sway him, he appreciated the chance to see a candidate’s spouse on a recreational level.
Andre Lacasse of Hampstead, another snowmobile racer, said Palin’s snowmobile interest was a bit different than those at the event Saturday.
“He’s not a drag racer. We go for speed,” Lacasse said. “He goes for distance.” The race Palin has won is a 2,000- mile-long distance race that follows the same path as the Iditarod dog sled race.
Lacasse said he is still undecided about who to vote for in the election and that it will come down to which candidate convinces him they can improve the economy.
Bobbie-Jo Dionne, a teacher from Braintree, Mass., was at the races watching two of her family members who were competing. While she said seeing Todd Palin at an event wouldn’t really influence her vote, she liked his laid-back campaign style.
“It wasn’t over the top, he didn’t make it as though it was the only reason he was here, which was nice,” Dionne said.
Dionne is still undecided on a presidential candidate and said she is frustrated by the negative campaigning, which deflects from the candidates being able to explain their platforms. She would like to hear more about how both candidates are planning to support educational initiatives.
Wyman Shuler, an East Kingston resident and veteran, supports McCain and Palin.
“I think it’s very refreshing. We like Sarah Palin a lot because she’s one of the people,” Shuler said, adding he too grew up in a small town and likes the fact that Palin worked her way up the ranks. “I can identify with her success and appreciate what she’s been able to accomplish.”
Memo to undecided Dionne. Google “Bill Ayers,” unrepentant flag-stomping American ex-terrorist/Obama education reform partner.
Meanwhile, the Obamist Globe, warming up the First Dude’s event today among the Downeasters in battleground Maine, informs:
PALMYRA, Maine—Maine House Minority Leader Josh Tardy kept his focus on the Republican presidential ticket’s potential for appeal to sportsmen Saturday as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s husband headed in for a two-day campaign swing.
While organizers prepared a welcome for Todd Palin at a barbecue at the Moosehead Trail Trading Post in Palmyra on Saturday, Tardy said Mainers value their outdoors heritage.
“There’s a lot of sportsmen and sportswomen here,” said Tardy, R-Newport.
Ayup.
Topics: pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:32 am on Sunday, October 12, 2008
One Response to “Stunning Troopergate Fallout!”
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October 12th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Bobbie-Jo Dionne wants to know how the candidates would support educational initiatives? Well, you can understand her confusion.
Obama spent years working with ABCs (Alliance for Better Chicago Schools) via the Developing Communities Project, and later was founding President & Chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, served in that position from 1996 to 1999, and remained on the Board of Directors until it was shut down in 2001.
How effective was Obama’s stewardship of the Challenge? Well, according to an independent report on the Challenge by the Consortium on Chicago School Research:
“Third, depite contributions to the development of a number of individual schools and despite some relative success among Breakthrough Schools, the findings provide little evidence of an overall Annenberg effect on school development or student outcomes across the schools it supported. No overall differences were found between Annenberg and demographically similar non-Annenberg schools in student achievement or the other student outcomes that were examined. With few exceptions, the patterns of development found among Annenberg schools were similar to patterns of development among non-Annenberg schools. Although Annenberg schools were initially developing at a somewhat stronger rate than demographically similar non-Annenberg schools on several measures of school leadership and teacher professional community, those advantages were lost. At the end of the Challenge, Annenberg schools as a group resembled similar non-Annenberg schools on virtually every measure of the Essential Supports.”
Yes, you can certainly understand Bobbie-Jo’s confusion - because so very little of this has been covered in the mainstream media, particularly since Obama started running for President. Did they dig into the Chicago Annenberg papers that were readily available at the UIC library? No, that was left to Stanely Kurtz at NRO, whose readership was already disinclined to vote for Obama on other grounds. Have they made an effort to find out more about Obama’s activities with the Developing Communities Project, where he may have first rubbed shoulders with Bill Ayers? No. Have they looked into his activities as President & Chairmen of the Annenberg Challenge, which gave large amounts of money to questionable characters like Mike Klonsky, who was head of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) in the 70’s? Of course not.
Just imagine - there are millions of Bobbie-Jo’s out there. Will anybody responsible for informing members of the public who still get their news from the papers and nightly TV broadcasts step up and let them in on the secret? Well, maybe someday they might, but not before the election - that much is certain.