Say, Palin happens to be a transparency hero
Friday, August 29th, 2008 By Mike Maurer
Her rise is a great (and rare) story of how adherence to principle–especially to transparency and accountability in government–can produce political success. . . . . She became a hero in the eyes of the public and the press, and the bane of Republican leaders. In 2005, she continued to take on the Republican establishment by joining Eric Croft, a Democrat, in lodging an ethics complaint against Renkes, who was not only attorney general but also a long-time adviser and campaign manager for Murkowski. . . . With her emphasis on ethics and openness in government, “it turned out Palin caught the temper of the times perfectly,” wrote Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News. . . . Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy (virtually all male) and nearly every other foe or critic. Political analysts in Alaska refer to the “body count” of Palin’s rivals. . . .”The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah,” says pollster Dave Dittman, who worked for her gubernatorial campaign. It includes Ruedrich, Renkes, Murkowski, gubernatorial contenders John Binkley and Andrew Halcro, the three big oil companies in Alaska, and a section of the Daily News called “Voice of the Times,” which was highly critical of Palin and is now defunct.
Don’t forget, transparency is exemplified by the Coburn-Obama bill, of which one of the original four co-sponsors was John McCain.
