Palinology-Part I

On my way to running errands, I heard part of the Palin introduction. She sounds like a keeper. Rush was lapping it up like a puppy left in the sun all day without water.

She talked of servant leadership, straight out of the Promise Keepers songbook, a good example of her evangelical roots. "But we are expected to govern with integrity, and goodwill, and clear convictions, and a servant's heart."

"The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons.And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good."

So far, so good. I've got to pick up Eileen for our Friday after-work dinner date, so more after chow.

[Update 8/30 -Bene, you may have a point. Palin as Spiro Agnew?

In 1962 Agnew ran for election as Baltimore County Executive, seeking office in a predominantly Democratic county that had seen no Republican elected to that position in the twentieth century, with only one (Roger B. Hayden) earning victory after he left. Running as a reformer and Republican outsider, he took advantage of a bitter split in the Democratic Party and was elected. Agnew backed and signed an ordinance outlawing discrimination in some public accommodations, among the first laws of this kind in the United States.

Agnew ran for the position of Governor of Maryland in 1966. In this overwhelmingly Democratic state, he was elected after the Democratic nominee, George P. Mahoney, a Baltimore paving contractor and perennial candidate running on an anti-integration platform, narrowly won the Democratic gubernatorial primary out of a crowded slate of eight candidates, trumping early favorite Carlton R. Sickles. Coming on the heels of the recently-passed federal Fair Housing Act of 1965, Mahoney's campaign embraced the slogan "your home is your castle". Many Democrats opposed to segregation then crossed party lines to give Agnew the governorship by 82,000 votes.

As governor, Agnew worked with the Democratic legislature to pass tax and judicial reforms, as well.

That's not a bad parallel; a term as a county leader and a half-term as governor, both with outsider, reform-minded personae.

However, the ethics issues are a bit different.  Agnew was taking bribes and got busted, like Al Capone, for tax evasion rather than the crime proper, in the process putting nolo contendere into our working vocabulary. To this point, Palin's alleged improprieties is firing people for personal reasons and not monetary corruption.]

Comments

[Bene D]

Interesting choice, however not historic.

1973 Spiro T. Agnew - inexperienced Nixon VP. Resigned as VP after pleading guilty to bribery.

2008 McCain VP pick Palin - inexperienced. Is in a state ethics investigation.

1984 Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro for VP.

Melissa Rogers has pulled news reports from The Anchorage Daily News around the governor race debate. http://melissarogers.typepad.com/