Rural Alaska and Palin

Grassroots Science posted this in the comments below, from the Fairbanks Daily News Miner (one of the larger Alaskan newspapers) about how unqualified Palin is. Opening line:

Sarah Palin’s chief qualification for being elected governor of Alaska was
that she was not Frank Murkowski.
She was not elected because she was a
conservative. She was not elected because of her grasp of issues or because of
her track record as the mayor of Wasilla, an office she won in 1996 by
collecting 617 votes.

Grassroots Science also posts:

I guess the repubs are breaking out the epoxy to repair the cracks in the ceiling.

If anyone wants to know what thoughtful solutions Palin brings to
today's (and tomorrow's) complexities, they should watch her Charlie Rose
interview with Gov. Janet Napolitano.

If anyone wants to know what she has done for rural Alaska (real
Alaska) tell them the indigent scientist for the Unorganized Borough needs a
job. A $1200 sop will not do.

It is a return to the late 70s, the beginnings of the current
Bush-Cheney era and more of the same ol' tired rhetoric with concomitant action
for the few.NB-- just because the election sounds like a no-brainer, that's
exactly what a lot of turned out voters prefer. It's no time to let ourselves
and our neighbors down by "coasting to victory"

What she has done with State Troopers - i.e. firing an incredibly competent and great commissioner in Walt Monegan - has directly affected Rural Alaska and Alaska Native people. Monegan, an Alaska Native man himself, was the first one in a long time to really begin addressing the incredibly high rates of abuse, violence and other social problems in Rural (Bush) Alaska. He was getting the ball rolling, but after only a year and a half at the job, Palin abruptly fires him because "she's going in a new direction." The direction she went was with a new commissioner who had already been reprimanded for sexual harrassment. Not much hope he'd be tough on the sexual abuse, of which Rural Alaska suffers from the highest rates in the nation of.

As far as Alaska Native issues go, the only substantive things Palin has done for Alaska Native people and Rural issues is fire people that are actually getting the job done.