Tracking Gov. Palin

By Bill Allison on 08/29/08 @ 3:48 pm | 22 Comments

Tags: Gov. Sarah Palin, online data, online resources, Sen. John McCain, vice president

Apparently, Republican presidential nominee John McCain has selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. For those looking for more information, her 2007 state personal financial disclosure form is online here (via the Center for Public Integrity). Via the excellent National Institute on Money in State Politics, here’s campaign finance information from her unsuccessful 2002 race for Lieutenant Governor, her 2006 primary campaign for governor, and her 2006 general election campaign for governor. I’ll update with more links as I come across them. I’m not going to dig into these myself today, but others should feel free to have at them.

First add: Via the Anchorage Daily News, here’s a copy of the pending ethics complaint against Palin.

Second add: Interesting to note that Palin, who bucked the Alaskan Republican Party establishment when she challenged incumbent Republican Frank Murkowski for the job in 2006, counted Republican party committees as the biggest source of her campaign cash — $75,183 out of a total of $874,042 raised — in the general election. A breakdown of those contributions is available here. Republican officials, candidates and former members kicked in another $15,394, according the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Third add: ViaÂ InstaPundit, I see that Michael Petrelis is looking into Palin’s financial disclosures as well. He notes this post from the Center for Public Integrity on Palin’s views on transparency.

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22 Comments on Tracking Gov. Palin

paul s. said:

John McCain’s stupidity proves once again that there is a GOD!!!!
7:46 pm on Aug 29, 2008
Peter V said:

Please, let’s lay off the sexist comments. That sort of crude bs is exactly what pisses off women voters, with good reason.
9:22 pm on Aug 29, 2008
robert said:

McCain was desperate and rolled the dice. He wants voters to overlook that his VP pick is not qualified to be the commander in chief.
10:08 pm on Aug 29, 2008
soldier said:

It’s not about sexist comments
IT’S ABOUT OUR LIVES, WE ARE IN TWO WARS!
2:25 am on Aug 30, 2008
Bill Allison said:

Whoops — sorry, I deleted a comment that focused on Gov. Palin’s appearance. I think the comment from Peter V about “no sexist comments” referred to that deleted comment.
2:33 am on Aug 30, 2008
Sims said:

It would appear that McCain just bought himself an October surprise. You would think that someone in his campaign would know how to Google. I think the republican hopefuls are going to be pretty disappointed to know that he gave away the election to Obama on a silver plater with the Palin selection. Obama should be celebrating. Wow what a blunder—
3:20 am on Aug 30, 2008
Bill Allison said:

Sims — agreed, but there may well be a similar October Surprise coming from the Biden family.
3:34 am on Aug 30, 2008
Rob W said:

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that Palin’s transgressions with ethics violations and at least two pending investigations by Alaska state officials are a little more damaging than Biden’s son and brother being sued in civil court.
4:27 am on Aug 30, 2008
PeterE said:

Maybe I misinterpreted her financial disclosure, but Ms. Palin’s net worth seems to be over $10 million. Amazing what a daughter of the soil can do if she puts her mind to it and works hard as city member of the PTS, city councillor, mayor and governor. I suspect that our responsible American journalists won’t mention this fact in their reports and analyses.
4:43 am on Aug 30, 2008
Tielle said:

That lawsuit has NOTHING to do with Senator Biden, unlike the abuse of powers investigation directly tied to Palin.
7:14 am on Aug 30, 2008
Jack B said:

I did a quick and dirty on her mutual fund assets–not bothering with single digit asset allocations–and I’d say it’s a safe bet that she owns less than $200, 000 in mutual funds. Simply multiply the number of shares (listed on the disclosure as units) times the current price, which you will have to dig up on the web.
11:01 am on Aug 30, 2008
Frederik said:

It is very touching what the liberals are doing here. They are claiming she doesn’t have any experiences for the job of vice-president, while in the same breath they have installed a presidential candidate who has even less experience than their own candidate Barack “I’m Black” Obama. But assume for a moment that John McCain will drop dead the next day after he swore for the office. Palin would then do what Barack Obama did. She will pick a vice president with long years of experiences. Who knows… Maybe that person will be Joe Biden.

As for McCain’s pandering to the voters… All political candidates are pandering to the voters… You can be sure that 99.9% Afro-Americans in USA are voting for Obama because he is black. He survived the Jeremiah Wright controversy because he is black. We all know that, so let’s cut the crap talk about her inexperience. Unlike for Obama I was at least able to find a couple of legislation acts which her administration passed during the last two years when she was a governor of Alaska. For Obama I cannot find anything he passed in the last four years in US Senate. He is for me, for my German friends would say, a common “hoch-stapler”.

So pleeeeazzzee… let’s get back to the issues… I think her choice is exciting one and we shall see what she has to tell us and then we shall decide how, how many, where, what, who, which etc.
12:56 pm on Aug 30, 2008
boris said:

a lawsuit involving a business dispute between partners…

now that is truly a scandal of epic proportions !
2:00 pm on Aug 30, 2008
MT said:

Regardless of Palin’s ethics investigations, the fact that she’s an avid supporter of ANWR drilling (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/427xjuoj.asp) is in itself enough to disqualify her. Anyone who has no qualms sacrificing one of our nation’s last remaining pristine wildlife sanctuary to big oil has no right being a heartbeat away from the presidency!!
3:34 pm on Aug 30, 2008
Kevin Russell Cook said:

The more I hear the punditry expound on Sara Palin as VP nominee, the more I’m reminded of the baseball umpire who insisted the pitches weren’t balls or strikes until he called ‘em.

Palin is a manifestly weak choice for a position that puts her a “heartbeat away”. Of, course, if enough pundits say otherwise…

McCain went pretty far down the list. And, that was because he had to pick from a short list of Repub office holders that were not pissed off with him, or visa-versa.
5:42 pm on Aug 30, 2008
Crempole Stalwart said:

October Surprises are tricks one campaign springs on another at the last minute. Not self-inflicted stupidity like naming someone who two years ago was the Mayor of a town to 7000 people to the second-most important post in the world. A craven power-driven gamble someone has foisted on 300 million US citizens. The Republican Party should nominate someone else because McCain isn’t thinking clearly.
7:09 pm on Aug 30, 2008
Herb said:

The far right has looked into the history of Sara Palin and found nothing to stop the nominating proceedure. Let’s look into where she stands on the topics we wrestle with every day. We know where she stands on aborotion, stem cells, guns, and education. Where does she stand on the economy, the two WARS, and our standing as a world leader. We cannot allow the far right to continue to usurp the power of (GOD bless) the USA.
7:17 pm on Aug 30, 2008
ACR said:

>>Maybe I misinterpreted her financial disclosure, but Ms. Palinâ€™s net worth seems to be over $10 million

Good work!

You multiplied the number of shares by the percentage of her total IRA in each fund and got a number that means nothing.

Multiply your IQ by -0- and then add the current room temperature; it’ll be close!
9:54 pm on Aug 31, 2008
Due diligence in the Biden family lawsuit said:

[...] a comment to this post pointing to some resources for getting acquainted with the Republican vice [...]
2:33 am on Sep 2, 2008
Condomimi said:

Give me a break! Everybody and his brother is thoroughly dissecting Sarah Palin’s background. I am sure if there is anything to be found - they will find it. And, if they don’t find anything of significance, they will insinuate that there is.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am tired of the Washington culture club. It does not take someone of long tenure in the government to be leveheaded and be able to select qualified people to advise her. It took Obama three tries to give a somewhat acceptable response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia - evidently his foreign policy advisors did not know that going to the UN would be useless - since Russia could VETO that action. And, Joe Biden has yet to get a foreign policy issue right! We know Sarah can handle the domestic issues and I have confidence in her ability to take on anything else neccesary for her to do the job.
1:15 am on Sep 8, 2008
Terri said:

I agree with Condomimi.
It is unbelievable how Democrats can be so full of themselves. They believe that if you don’t agree with them then you have to be a complete idiot, a fundamentalist, or a red neck. The United States is a very large country and there are a lot of people between the East and West Coasts that are not liberal; they are also not idiots, fundamentalists, or red necks. It seems that sometimes people forget that these people exist. Frankly, the uneducated, fundamentalist, and red necks have a right to their beliefs, opinions and votes…it still is the United States of America, right?

I personally believe it would be safer to have Palin be president than Obama. Even if I was a Democrat I wouldn’t think that Obama was an acceptable candidate…in fact I would be horrified! I am horrified! At least if Obama does win I won’t be whining the whole time he is in office like many of the Democrats over the last 8 years. Gee…grow up why don’t you. People can have different opinions from you without you having to put them down. That usually means that you have issues with your own self-esteem.

It is Democrats like some of these past posts that make people want to vote Republican just to distance themselves from you.
4:38 am on Sep 13, 2008
Warrior Poet » Blog Archive » WANTED: One Warm Bucket Of Piss said:

[...] Palin is a millionaire, don’t forget it when she says that she’s “main street” or “joe six [...]
3:48 am on Oct 3, 2008