Governor Palin on Bi-Partisan Leadership

Governor Palin was able to achieve HUGE bi-partisan support from both sides of the Alaska State Legislature:

"We created a petroleum integrity office to oversee safe development. We held the line FOR Alaskans on Point Thomson - and finally for the first time in decades - they're drilling for oil and gas.

We have AGIA, the gasline project - a massive bi-partisan victory (the vote was 58 to 1!) - also succeeding as intended - protecting Alaskans as our clean natural gas will flow to energize us, and America, through a competitive, pro-private sector project. This is the largest private sector energy project, ever. THIS is energy independence.

And ACES - another bipartisan effort - is working as intended and industry is publicly acknowledging its success. Our new oil and gas "clear and equitable formula" is so Alaskans will no longer be taken advantage of. ACES incentivizes NEW exploration and development and JOBS that were previously not going to happen with a monopolized North Slope oil basin.

We cleaned up previously accepted unethical actions; we ushered in bi-partisan Ethics Reform.

We also slowed the rate of government growth, we worked with the Legislature to save billions of dollars for the future, and I made no lobbyist friends with my hundreds of millions of dollars in budget vetoes... but living beyond our means today is irresponsible for tomorrow.

We took government out of the dairy business and put it back into private-sector hands - where it should be.

We provided unprecedented support for education initiatives, and with the right leadership, finally filled long-vacant public safety positions. We built a sub-Cabinet on Climate Change and took heat from Outside special interests for our biologically-sound wildlife management for abundance.

We broke ground on the new prison.

And we made common sense conservative choices to eliminate personal luxuries like the jet, the chef, the junkets... the entourage.
And the Lt. Governor and I said "no" to our pay raises."

Sarah Palin first made history on December 4, 2006 when she was sworn in as the first female governor of Alaska. In August 2008, Senator John McCain tapped Palin to serve as his vice-presidential running mate in his presidential campaign, making her the first woman to run on the Republican Party's presidential ticket.


In Alaska, her top priorities included fiscal restraint, limiting the size of government, resource development, education, equitable oil valuation as well as transportation and infrastructure development. Palin fought for ethics reform and transparency in government.


Palin has a long record of achievements and experience in public office. Prior to her election as Governor, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council and two terms as the mayor of Wasilla. During her tenure, she reduced property tax levels while increasing services and made Wasilla a business-friendly environment, drawing in new industry.


Under her leadership as Governor, Alaska invested $5 billion in state savings, overhauled education funding and protected Alaska's natural resources. She created Alaska's Petroleum Systems Integrity Office to provide oversight and maintenance of oil and gas equipment, facilities and infrastructure and the Climate Change Subcabinet to prepare a climate change strategy for Alaska.


During Governor Palin's first year in office, three of her administration's major proposed pieces of legislation passed—an overhaul of the state's ethics laws, a competitive process to construct a natural gas pipeline and a restructuring of Alaska's oil valuation formula.


Palin is past chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a multistate government agency that promotes the conservation and efficient recovery of domestic oil and natural gas resources while protecting health, safety and the environment. She also served as chair of the National Governors Association (NGA) Natural Resources Committee, which was charged with pursuing legislation to ensure state needs are considered as federal policy is formulated in the areas of agriculture, energy, environmental protection and natural resource management.


SARAH PALIN’S history of executive and leadership positions:
1996 – Elected Mayor of Wasilla
1999 – Reelected Mayor of Wasilla
2002 – Elected as President of AK Conference of Mayors by fellow mayors in the state
2003 – Appointed by Governor (and fmr Senator) as Chairman and Ethics Supervisor of the AK Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (a major leadership post in the state’s most vital economic field and industry)
2006 – Elected Governor
2007 – Elected Chairman of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact, a multistate/intl group focused on energy development, by fellow governors across the country
2008 – Nominated by GOP as Vice Presidential nominee after being selected by party’s Presidential nominee



Sarah Palin was a sitting governor, and at that time, before the Obama campaign and their allies in the press spent months relentlessly smearing her good name, she had the highest approval ratings of any governor in the country [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/851orcjq.asp]

She was also responsible for getting the largest energy project in North American history underway after several decades of interminable delays in Alaska [http://www.newsweek.com/2008/09/19/palin-s-pipeline-to-nowhere.html].

She was a courageous corruption-busting whistleblower who turned in the leader of her own party in Alaska for his corrupt practices [http://www.adn.com/2007/07/10/150137/palin-signs-ethics-reforms.html].

She was a fiscal conservative who made the largest veto cuts in Alaska history [http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/070807/hom_20070708005.shtml], reined in the reckless waste, cut her own expenses, sold the governor’s private jet [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/sep/04/sarah-palin/no-bidders-on-ebay-sold-it-offline/], let the personal chef go [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin#cite_note-alaskajournal1-105], and put away billions of dollars in savings for Alaska for a rainy day [http://web.archive.org/web/20080527181734/http://www.adn.com/legislature/story/415749.html].

She was a tough CEO who went toe to toe with the Big Oil companies and fought to get the best deal for Alaskans, the resource owners she represented [http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/energywire/2008/08/sarah_palin_and_big_oil.html]. And she did all of this as a woman from a modest background who was entirely self-made – without the benefit of a rich or influential father or husband. 

There are a few things that people like to bring up about Sarah and one of the most common is in regards to her stepping down as Governor. But to me, her stepping down as Governor was the noblest, selfless act I've seen in a state official. Below is an excerpt from her book “Going Rogue” explaining how her administration was paralyzed once she came back from the 2008 campaign.

"My administration was hit with hundreds of demands for all communications: months' worth of e-mails between me, Todd, and my staff, and every other combination of e-mail addresses you can imagine. Only the opposition really comprehends the work involved with FOIA requests--from the retrieval of all correspondence and e-mails, to copying them for lawyers and staff to review in order to remove confidential or privileged information, to assembling and packing them, and on and on. Just ONE of these requests for a certain batch of e-mails generated 24,000 individual sheets of paper. So instead of doing out jobs, my staff, including my attorneys, spend thousands of hours and wasted more that $2 million of public monies to sort through it all one sheet at a time... Combined with the FOIAs, the sheer volume of paperwork and legally required responses brought the business of governing the state of Alaska to a grinding halt. Eventually, it overwhelmed us--and was obviously meant to."-Going Rouge: An American Life, By: Sarah Palin

As governor of Alaska, Palin's job approval rating ranged from a high of 93% in May 2007 to 54% in May 2009. In November 2006, the month before Palin took office, Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski’s job approval rating was 19%. Sarah Palin had the highest approval ratings of ANY Governor elected. She was making enormous progress in her state. After the 2008 election she came back ready to work but after the vicious frivolous attacks from the liberal left, her administration became paralyzed. She was unable to get the smallest pieces of legislation through. She could sit and watch Alaska suffer or she could pass on her agenda to her lieutenant Governor. I know it's hard to believe a public servant would put their state before self, but that's exactly why I love and support Governor Sarah Palin.

 Back when Sarah was thinking of running for Gov & others suggested she run for Lt. Gov to get her feet wet, she replied:

"'If I'm going to put all that effort into running for office, and be serious about it - serious enough to win - then I'm going to run for governor.' I'm not going to settle for what so many people were telling me I should settle for. If you're going to do something you need to do it 110 percent, do what your gut is telling you to do and do it right."

Sarah Palin has catapulted from just an average hockey mom to PTA to City Council to Mayor to Oil & Gas Commissioner of the largest state in North America to Governor to Vice Presidential Nominee to most likely 2012 Presidential candidate.