|
How did Sarah Palin do it?
I asked her good friend Adele
Morgan
As a politically baffled former Alaskan,
I’ve often wondered how Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, presidential
hopeful John McCain’s pick for vice president,
managed to beat Republican incumbent Frank Murkowski in the
2006 gubernatorial primary and former two-term
Democratic governor Tony Knowles in the general election to
become Alaska’s first woman governor; and, by virtue
of her high standing, the chief overseer of Alaska’s
considerable oil and gas resources.
Moreover, and certainly more mind-boggling, is why
McCain selected a virtual nobody on the national political
scene to be his running mate and, if elected, would become the
first woman president of the United States should McCain
become seriously incapacitated or die in office. There’s
gotta be something special about this lady.
Alaska is a
big place but a small world
Alaska is a big place --
much larger than Texas and perhaps a third the size
of the continental U.S. But considering its tiny
population, Alaska is actually a small world when
it comes to
people knowing people you know. Palin’s father, Chuck Heath,
was my 32-year-old son’s fifth grade teacher. And my
wife’s cousin, Adele Morgan, an accomplished Alaskan
singer-songwriter, just happens to be a life-long friend and
political ally of Palin. The two met in grade school, and Adele once
dated Palin’s brother.
So naturally I turned to Adele, who thus
far has turned down two offers to run for the Alaska
Legislature, for an insider’s view of Palin and
her character. Adele, who provided
enough information to fill a dozen columns during our two-hour
phone chat, summed up her friend this way: “She’s
got a great personality. She’s got a ton of charisma.
She’s got tenacity like you would not believe.
She’s super thick- skinned. And she has a purpose to serve
the people. So when she says (something), she means it.
She’s not just reading it from a script.She’s a
maverick. She’s a reformer.”
I have never met Sarah Palin. But I am well
acquainted with the two former governors she defeated at the
ballot box. I served as Murkowski’s press secretary during his first successful run
for the U.S. Senate in 1980. And, as a daily newspaper
reporter, I
interviewed Knowles on numerous occasions throughout his long political career, including stints as mayor of Anchorage and
earlier as a member of the Anchorage Borough Assembly.
Both men were capable governors with solid track records; and,
while they had their political enemies, generally worked well
with Alaska’s oil and gas industry and its three
most prominent and powerful members -- ExxonMobil,
ConocoPhillips and BP -- which together provide the
lion’s share of state revenues though royalties and taxes on
North Slope production, most notably on oil from the giant
Prudhoe Bay field, the largest-ever discovery in North America.
However, neither Murkowski nor Knowles, along with
a bunch of other governors dating back a couple of decades,
could push through the necessary state legislation to bring the North
Slope’s other abundant but stranded resource, natural gas, to
Lower 48 markets. Needless to say, this was and is an expensive
proposition for industry -- perhaps as much as $30 billion in private
investment for production facilities and a 1,700-mile pipeline to transport around 4.5
billion cubic feet of gas daily from the North Slope into Canada and ultimately to the Lower 48 via other existing pipeline
systems. Moreover, hammering out a leak proof agreement that satisfies
both producer demands and the state’s tax and
royalty regime probably has been more challenging than rounding up the
cash to build the gas pipeline itself.
Alaska
gasline will require producer approval
There’s much work to be done before an
Alaska gas pipeline can become reality, so Gov. Palin cannot
take credit for an all important deal that did not exist at
this writing, namely gaining the support of Alaska’s Big
Three producers. Let’s face it! Without their
consent and participation, the gas pipeline just
ain’t goin’ no where, no how. And, while
Palin’s independent spirit and tough guy approach to politics
and state government no doubt remain popular with
the voters who put her in the state’s highest
office, the governor is not exactly beloved by
Alaska’s oil and gas industry, based alone on
her rousing speech to the Republican National Convention:
“We shook things up. Despite fierce opposition from oil
company lobbyists, who kind of liked things the way they were,
we broke their monopoly on power and resources.”
Nevertheless, the governor certainly can take much
of the credit for moving a seriously bogged down project
forward in a big way by working closely with the Alaska
Legislature to award a state license to TransCanada to pursue
federal certification for the natural gas pipeline.
“It will be our Alaska gas flowing to provide aid to
those in the Lower 48, who are turning to Alaska, waiting and
wanting Alaska to help,” Palin said after the
legislature’s support.
The license, awarded under the Alaska Gasline
Inducement Act, initially attracted five companies in addition
to TransCanada. Meanwhile, BP and ConocoPhillips
are working on their own pipeline proposal called Denali,
which further demonstrates the wide gap between the state and
North Slope producers.
Sarah
Palin’s political beginnings
Unlike her predecessors,
Palin’s
move through the Alaska political system was initially unremarkable,
serving two terms on the city council in Wasilla, population
6,000, and then two terms as Wasilla’s mayor. After an
unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor, Palin was
selected by the Murkowski administration to chair the Alaska
Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to
2004 while also serving as ethics supervisor of the
commission. True to her growing
reputation as a reformist, Palin resigned after alleging that
the
commission was rift with corruption. Thus was born Alaska’s
next governor and, perhaps, America’s next vice president.
Return
to Archives
|