Palin to Run With McCain
This is not a politics blog. I don’t really care who runs for what. Issues are our thing, and natural resource issues exclusively, not personalities. Whomever gets elected, we’ll deal with it when the time comes.
But it is nonetheless a hopeful sign that John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate this morning. Sarah Palin is very well respected by conservationists.
Under Palin’s leadership Alaska has adopted non-nonsense policies regarding wolves and other predators. Alaskans understand that predator control is necessary to sustain prey populations like moose, elk, and caribou.
Alaska recently sued to overturn the listing of polar bears as a threatened species. Because they are not threatened. There are three times as many polar bears today as there were forty years ago. See [here].
Alaska is a resource producing state. They are a net giver, not a net taker. That is an admirable thing, although the net taker states don’t like to think about it.
East Coasters are probably scratching their heads wondering who Sarah Palin is, but not around here. We like Sarah. Good choice, John.
Here we go. This is not a political blog, but if you want to weigh in on this news, go ahead.
by Bob Z.
Mike:
This IS a political blog. Our forests are being mismanaged by Government Central based on nationalized policies developed by federal politicians and politically appointed judges guided and reinforced by well-paid political activists that call themselves “scientists” and “ecologists” and “environmental lawyers.”
We would not be in the mess you are fighting if it were not for politics. It will probably take politics to get us out.
When natural resources were managed by local families and businesses things were much (much) better. Any rural western US citizen over 40 years of age knows that to be true.
Too-shay! (French for you got me there)
by Joe B.
Hey Bob Z, even some of us rural western citizens under 40 know that to be true.
by Bob Z.
Joe B.:
We need a lot more like you.
It’s just not right to leave your generation and your kids the ugly mess that’s out there today. We were given a beautiful, safe, productive land to live an work on, and we seemed to have messed it up royally and moved to town.
Sorry for that.
by Forrest Grump
I worked on the railroad in Alaska when I was in cowledge. It was like being in a time warp of 20 years or so. I was amazed at the number of Montanans who had either moved there, and knew people I knew, or of friends of mine I ended up running into up there.
The time warp part is important. I think Palin may very well be “Western” enough in her attitudes, backed with her drive to cleaning up the pig house of Alaska politics, that she’d be a good thing in terms of the agency selections made by McCain. Maybe. The possibility is better than it was a few days ago, anyway.
by Kevin S.
And she is a BABE!
Dear Senator McCain,
We are absolutely ecstatic over your selection of Governor Sarah Palin for vice president of the United States.
If need be, she has every quality necessary to lead our country as president.
Your decision shows you to be the visionary statesman we are counting on you to be. You and Governor Palin re-invigorate us!