Alaska Senate President Lyda Green (R-Wasilla) had a few more choice words for her neighbor, the governor.
Green, who has feuded with Palin, brought up the big oil tax increase Palin pushed through last year. She also pointed to the award of a $500 million state subsidy to a Canadian firm to pursue a natural gas pipeline that’s far from guaranteed.House Speaker John Harris, a Republican from Valdez, was also astonished at the news. He didn’t want to get into the issue of her qualifications.
“She’s old enough,” Harris said. “She’s a U.S. citizen.”
With that much love from your fellow hometown Republican, do we really need to report on the reaction from the Democrats? Of course not, but it’s fun.
Anchorage Democratic Sen. Hollis French said it’s a huge mistake by McCain and “reflects very, very badly on his judgment.”
Alaska Democratic Party chairwoman Patti Higgins, attending her party’s national convention in Denver, said she was shocked to hear the news this morning.
“In this very competitive election for them to go pick somebody who is … under a cloud of suspicion, who is under investigation for abuse of power. It just sounds like a pretty slow start to me,” Higgins said.
The state Legislature is investigating whether Palin and her staff broke state law by pressuring the public safety department to fire a state trooper who was in a custody battle with her sister.
“We need a vice president who can step in if, God forbid, something happened to John McCain,” Higgins said. “I don’t think she’s someone who is ready for that 3 a.m. phone call.”
There’s more in the New York Times
Ms. Green said the governor was difficult for her to deal with, a state of affairs she traces to Ms. Green’s decision to remain neutral in Ms. Palin’s race against former Governor Murkowski.
“There was some resentment there that some of us didn’t come out and support her during the primary, and it never really got any better,” Ms. Green said. “I found that if you disagreed with her or tried to amend or change something, that was sort of off-limits. She did not like being told no or to change it.”
Is that picture of McCain for real! Yikes!!
of a nice lady.
More qualified to lead than Sarah Palin.
Maybe they should use that as a slogan. đŸ™‚
Has a nice ring to it.
that that is not the case. she’s fully legally qualified, even if she’s not meaningfully qualified.
It’s too friggin’ silly. I’ve had to come back and look at it 4 times.
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p>I wish there were sound; I wonder what they are listening to?
I know, I keep coming back to look at it, too. I find it oddly compelling, and it makes me happy to see it. It’s so well done.
and the guy who posted it there h/t someone else, so I think it’s sort of viral at this point.
Isn’t part of Palin’s cache that she has blown the whistle on state political corruption, even from within her own party? I don’t know if the Senate President is involved, but she may be able to claim this animosity as a badge of honor in keeping with the maverick theme.
Did you read down to “This can’t be happening?”
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p>True, there are a lot of GOP pols in Alaska who aren’t happy with Palin (reformers who kind of come out of nowhere have that effect on veteran politicians), but it seems like those are just the folks that the people who vetted Palin for McCain would have wanted to talk to. Hear the worst things they have to say about her, so there are no surprises down the road.
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p>I mean, surely McCain had some good, experienced people vetting Palin, didn’t he? He wouldn’t just put her up there as his VP choice without making sure there weren’t skeletons in her closet, would he? He wouldn’t be that reckless, would he?
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p>Wow, if McCain just picked Palin based on one meeting and one phone call and didn’t thoroughly vet her, then I’m speechless.