PAGE 119
Anchorage campaign office
On p. 119 of GR, Sarah continues her discussion of the 2006 campaign for the Governorship of Alaska. She writes, "During the campaign, Lena [Todd's eighty-seven-year-old Yupik elder grandmother] went around Dillingham talking with the Yupik elders.
" 'Do you know my grandson Todd?' she would ask.
"Everyone in Dillingham knew Todd.
" 'His wife is running for Boss Alaska.'
"Like Lena, we were tireless, because every vote and every voter mattered."
This is profound in its simplicity, a simplicity that sits on a single letter!
VOTE.
VOTER.
Yes, what a difference one letter can make!
We all remember the difference that just one or two WORDS can make.
Who can ever forget the deathless night of 3 September, 2008 at the RNC, when the Governor, while fighting a failed (sabotaged?) teleprompter, uttered that single word that has, for many of us, become the crowning memory of a speech that was, in its entirety, unforgettable:
LIPSTICK!!
Who can ever forget those two words with which she so aptly dubbed and damned the entirety filthy business known as "obamacare":
DEATH PANELS!!!
But here, here, what a world of difference is contained in the one LETTER upon which pivots and turns the distinction between "vote" and "voter."
We have an expression: "It doesn't make an iota of difference." This aphorism may be traced to an ancient theological dispute that turned upon the difference of one letter, iota, between two Greek words.
Well, in this case, we may say that the contrast vote/voter does make an "R" (GRRRRRR!!!) of difference.
Sarah's political and personal philosophy stands at the opposite pole (and poll!) of the intellectual and spiritual universe from that of so many professional politicos.
For these opportunistic oligarchs of BOTH political Parties, the People do not matter one little bit; all that the hacks want is to HERD them like SLAVES to the ballot box and get them to pull a lever.
They crave VOTES; the VOTERS themselves, the voters' needs, the voters' wishes, the voters' families, the voters' aspirations, the voters' interests be damned!!!
A vote is an evanescent and ephemeral phenomenon. It is cast and then it is over and done with.
Voters breathe; voters live on; voters remember.
Sarah Palin of Alaska cares, to the depths of her great-hearted soul, she cares about the people of the United States of America.
Yes, if she runs for POTUS 2016, if she runs, to adapt Lena's expression, for BOSS AMERICA, she will ask for our votes.
But this will be because she wants to SERVE the voters, not to BE SERVED by them, as our President--a Servant's Heart!!
Remember what she said to Bristol in the CPAC episode of her daughter's show "Bristol Palin: Life's a Tripp"?!?
She was speaking about the crowds of ordinary men, women, and children who always flock to her wherever she goes, seeking a smile, a word, an autograph.
"I'D GIVE MY LIFE FOR THEM."
This is so beautiful; it rings and rings and rings with authenticity and depth and truth!!
MAIOREM CARITATEM NEMO HABET UT ANIMAM SUAM PONAT QUIS PRO AMICIS SUIS--No one hath greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
For most other people involved in politics today, it is fair, I think, to say that "every vote" matters to them.
For our Sarah, it is "every vote and every voter" that matters.
There it is: VOTE and VOTER.
One letter that places a great spiritual chasm, IMHO, between the nobility and magnanimity of Sarah Palin of Alaska and the base power-mongering of the herd of DC hacks who run today's Washington.
