PAGE 113

On p. 113 of GR, Sarah continues her discussion of her 2005-2006 run for Governor of Alaska. She writes, "I wanted to shake every hand on the trail. I wanted to meet the people who would be my bosses. While the other candidates jetted between big cities, our team drove way up to tiny towns like Tok and Delta Junction, where the permafrost heaves in the road make you feel like you're riding ocean waves.

"It's not unusual to see bear and moose and buffalo and an occasional wolf loping down the middle of the highway.


"Like stars in the northern sky, Alaska has hundreds of tiny towns and villages flung across it, and the people who live in them are the state's heart and soul. When we visited, sometimes whole towns turned out, from little kids to Native elders bearing akuutaq and blueberry muffins and salmon strips."

What a beautiful testament to a Servant's Heart! Unlike the would-be "emperor" obama, who wants to be our dictator and boss, Sarah recognized that the People of Alaska would be her bosses if and when she won the gubernatorial contest and chair!!

And, like the 2005-6 campaign for Governor, thousands upon more thousands witnessed Sarah's golden heart on the 2008 national campaign trail too. She would often linger and linger and linger at campaign appearances, staying to shake hands, to sign autographs, to talk to her people--to the distress of her Secret Service detail and her staff!!

She had and has a heart for the LITTLE people and the LITTLE cities and towns and villages, and she is always up for an adventurous trip to go and visit them. She is one of us!!!

Especially beautiful in this section, IMHO, are the words "Like stars in the northern sky, Alaska has hundreds of tiny towns and villages flung across it, and the people who live in them are the state's heart and soul."

Think about the depth and power of the evocative image that she paints here on p. 113 and paints in our minds and hearts too!!

It is as if a great and generous Hand has "flung" tiny and yet tremendous seeds, glorious and glittering gems, across the kingdom and cosmos of the skies, and across the wide expanse and embrace of the generous and joyous Great Land!!

And it is not just a physical picture of shining and shimmering dots on a map that she has planted in the fields of our imagination; no, it is a spiritual one too.

A star is the center of its world and of its solar system; it anchors it and holds it in place. So these towns and villages may be small and even minuscule in their physical presence; nevertheless, morally speaking, they possess the weight and power not of a physical gravitational pull, but of a moral and spiritual gravitational pull that holds them and the whole State in a balanced and beauteous equipoise.

And when the 2016 campaign comes …

It will be not just HUNDREDS of little ALASKAN towns, but THOUSANDS of little AMERICAN communities that she will visit …

… maybe not always in person, but in spirit.

Indeed, I think that we may go further in prognostication and predictions, and say that the Lioness of the North Country will reach out to MILLIONS of simple and upright American hearts, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, each one a little star in its own right; each one a star in its own interior universe of the spirit; each one a precious gem in the constellation of a Free People, a Free People that will …

… NEVER, NEVER, NEVER SURRENDER!!!


Read It For Yourself:

Read It For Yourself:

Other Great Sarah Books:

Other Great Sarah Books:

Palin Essentials:

Palin Essentials:

Credits:

All sidebar photos are from Wikimedia. I have tried to post all royalty-free images or to get permission, but in a few cases I could not locate the original source of a photograph or find a way to ask permission.


Contact info: bbrianus@gmail.com.

Other Great Going Rogue Reviews:

Jedediah Bila:

"Palin’s inviting first-person narration that is sometimes whimsical, often confident, and always patriotic...Going Rogue is truly one of those reads in which you put the book down after your eyes graze the final lines and you somehow feel like the writer is someone you’ve known all your life."
John Ziegler:

"I was simply blown away by Going Rogue on almost every level. For many reasons, this is by far the best book and greatest literary achievement by a political figure in my lifetime..."
Brigadier General Anthony J. Tata:
"Her book washes away all doubts that any reader might have had about her readiness to be president. She comes across as exceptionally bright, dedicated, and passionate about public service. Her moral compass is strong, pointing true North in this case. And she has a wicked sense of humor."
Don Surber:
"Conservatives know why Palin is still standing — and standing taller today than those who tried to bring her down. What does not kill you makes you stronger. Thank you, Tina Fey."

Sarah Palin is Coming to Town

Review by Stanley Fish:

When I walked into the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan last week, I headed straight for the bright young thing who wore an “Ask Me” button, and asked her to point me to the section of the store where I might find Sarah Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” She looked at me as if I had requested a copy of “Mein Kampf” signed in blood by the author....

A few days later...I had begun reading Palin’s book, and while I wouldn’t count myself a fan in the sense of being a supporter, I found it compelling and very well done....

First, the art. The book has an architectonic structure that is built around a single moment, the moment when Palin receives a call from John McCain inviting her to be the vice-presidential candidate of the Republican party. When we first hear about the call it is as much a surprise to us as it was (at least as reported) to her, because for six pages she has been recounting a wonderful family outing at the Alaska State Fair. When her phone rings, she hopes it might be a call from her son Track, a soldier soon to deploy to Iraq, but “it was Senator John McCain asking if I wanted to help him change history.”

And that’s the last we hear of it for 200 pages. In between we hear a lot about Wasilla, high school, basketball, college, marriage, children, Down syndrome, Alaska politics, the environment, a daughter’s pregnancy. The re-entry of John McCain into the narrative on page 208 introduces Palin’s account of the presidential campaign and its aftermath, especially her decision to resign the governorship before the end of her term....

Paradoxically, the effect of the neatly spaced references to the call is to de-emphasize it as a dramatic moment. It is presented not as a climax, but as an interruption of matters more central to Palin’s abiding concerns — her family, Alaska’s prosperity, energy policy. (She loves to rehearse the kind of wonkish details we associate with Hillary Clinton, whom she admires.)

Indeed, it is a feature of this narrative that events we might have expected to be foregrounded are elided or passed over. Palin introduced herself to the nation with a powerful, electrifying speech accepting McCain’s invitation to join the ticket. It gets half a sentence (“I gave my speech”)....

The only event that receives an extended discussion is her resignation. It is important to her because as an act it reflects on her integrity, and she has to be sure (as she eventually was) that she was doing it for the right reasons.

Resigning was a moral act for which she was responsible. The vice-presidential candidacy just happened to her; her account of it reads like an extended “what-I-did-on-my summer-and fall-vacation” essay.

For many politicians, family life is sandwiched in between long hours in public service. Palin wants us to know that for her it is the reverse. Political success is an accident that says nothing about you. Success as a wife, mother and citizen says everything...

I find the voice undeniably authentic...It is the voice of small-town America, with its folk wisdom, regional pride, common sense, distrust of rhetoric (itself a rhetorical trope), love of country and instinctive (not doctrinal) piety.

It says, here are some of the great things that have happened to me, but they are not what makes my life great and American. (“An American life is an extraordinary life.”) It says, don’t you agree with me that family, freedom and the beauties of nature are what sustain us?

And it also says, vote for me next time. For it is the voice of a politician, of the little girl who thought she could fly, tried it, scraped her knees, dusted herself off and “kept walking.”

In the end, perseverance, the ability to absorb defeat without falling into defeatism, is the key to Palin’s character. It’s what makes her run in both senses of the word and it is no accident that the physical act of running is throughout the book the metaphor for joy and real life. Her handlers in the McCain campaign wouldn’t let her run (a mistake, I think, even at the level of photo-op), no doubt because they feared another opportunity to go “off script,” to “go rogue.”

But run she does (and falls, but so what?), and when it is all over and she has lost the vice presidency and resigned the governorship, she goes on a long run and rehearses in her mind the eventful year she has chronicled. And as she runs, she achieves equilibrium and hope: “We’ve been through amazing days, and really, there wasn’t one thing to complain about. I feel such freedom, such hope, such thankfulness for our country, a place where nothing is hopeless.”

The message is clear. America can’t be stopped. I can’t be stopped. I’ve stumbled and fallen, but I always get up and run again. Her political opponents, especially those who dismissed Ronald Reagan before he was elected, should take note. Wherever you are, you better watch out. Sarah Palin is coming to town.

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