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(This is why I just LOVES me some intertubes! Who needs network correspondents?
p.s. This is NOT incompatible with my diary below. Learning about Palin's actual background is precisely what McCain failed to do. Just keep in mind that it's not ultimately about her. It's about him. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Oddly enough, I'm spending a week with my parents in Wasilla, AK, where Sarah was mayor for before becoming governor just two years ago.
As y'all are learning, Sarah's political career outside of Wasilla has been just two years as Governor, so her experience in Wasilla is sure to be discussed heavily over the next few months. Let's examine what life is like in Wasilla and what kind of changes happened while she was on the City Council and as Mayor, shall we? |
| Wasilla is a sleepy town, population about 9,000, and it's the largest city in the borough (the Alaskan equivalent of counties). It's a bedroom community for Anchorage, with 30% of the workforce commuting to Anchorage, and without a real industry of its own.
The biggest employer in town are a number of big-box retailers: Walmart, Fred Meyers, Target, Sears, and Carrs (Safeway). These retailers have a regional draw, as it's the biggest town south of Fairbanks (315 miles to the north), so there's probably more like 20-30k people that drive to these stores for their shopping needs.
The largest employer in the region is Mat-su Regional Hospital, employing about 700 people (including my dad), but it's located outside the city limits.
There's one main drag, the Parks highway (which goes from Anchorage to Fairbanks), which is just loaded with these big box and other chain retailers & restaurants. It's not quite Anytown, USA: there are a number of Alaska-specific businesses that address the needs of the hunting, fishing, and building of cabins in the middle of Nowhere, AK.
In the summer, both out-of-town tourists and Alaskan often stock up on their way through. The Parks Highway seems like just a long line of motorhomes, campers, boats trailers and four wheelers.
One other industry has been home construction. The population has about doubled over the past 10 years, thanks mostly to the construction of a large number of cookie-cutter subdivisions. This involves a developer buying like 100 acres, clear-cutting it, and building any of the four different models they have chosen.
During Mrs. Palin's time on the City Council and as Mayor, most of the chain retailers went into the area. When I was living in Anchorage in the 80's and early 90's, we'd drive through Wasilla all the time, and there were no big-box stores then besides the Fred Meyers and Carrs (which, at that point, hadn't been bought by Safeway yet). One angle worth pursuing is that her only legacy here, and the most visible change, is the construction of all of these stores and the loss of identity that has caused.
The biggest topics of conversation are the weather and which chain retailer is going in next. Next year, a Walmart pharmacy and a Walgreens will be going in. Whee!
Overheard in town: "Did you hear the news today?" "Yeah... but she's not ready". That echoes my sentiment. A political career that is two years outside of Wasilla is just paper-thin.
Any requests while I'm here in Wasilla? I'm here another two days before flying back home to my much less-sleepy home in San Francisco. |
