Long before Sarah Palin hit the national scene, she wrote an op-ed making the exact argument that now applies to her own vice presidential candidacy. In it, she claimed that Frank Murkowski's support of the Violence Against Women Act -- written by Joe Biden -- made him a better candidate for governor than his female opponent, Fran Ulmer.
The time is 2002. Palin is just hitting the scene -- people are beginning to write letters to the editor asking that she be considered for higher office. But she gets passed over for lieutenant governor and then makes the argument that women should vote for a male candidate over a female candidate for governor of Alaska.
The actual statement, from the Anchorage Daily News, Nov. 4, 2002 (you have to buy it from their archives, so you can't link to it), below the fold...
Palin certainly didn't realize she was articulating the argument that would apply to herself when she wrote the following lede to her op-ed piece:
As Alaska voters sort out the charges and countercharges of the two major candidates for governor, no doubt many women will be asking themselves why they should support a man, Frank Murkowski, rather than a woman, Fran Ulmer. It is important to compare these two candidates and vote accordingly.
From there her first order of business is to attack Ulmer:
Fran Ulmer claims credit for advances in social issues over the past eight years. But she takes credit for things like water and sewer construction projects and extending Medicaid benefits and health insurance for poor women and children, which are actually federally funded programs.
Hmmm...it sounds like she's saying that if all you've ever done is try to do things on a local level, if you've never worked in Washington, then you really haven't done much. In fact, it sounds like Palin is saying that the only good things to happen to Alaska come from Washington.
And she doesn't seem to think much of her state:
Alaska leads the nation in alcoholism and has the worst fetal alcohol syndrome problem in the country. Alaska leads the nation in child abuse, and the state has not done enough to protect its most vulnerable children.
Alaska also leads the nation in domestic violence. Alaska's foster care program is under investigation and is out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If being "under investigation" is a problem, then Palin herself has a wee bit of a situation.
Fortunately, there's Frank Murkowski, who is the Elysian Fields in Palin's eyes. Indeed, one of his most redeeming features is that
Murkowski has worked on many other federal initiatives beneficial to women, from the Violence Against Women Act to teen suicide prevention to Head Start and fetal alcohol syndrome funding.
My, he's practically a democrat. But if he'd been a democrat, he wouldn't have just "worked on" the Violence Against Women Act, he would have written it. Like Joe Biden.
So here's the score. Palin is a cheerleader for Murkowski because Murkowski approved of what Biden wrote, championed, and accomplished. And now Palin is supposed to be Biden's equal? For the record, the Wikipedia entry on the Violence Against Women Act specifies that it came out of Biden's office, but makes no mention at all of Murkowski "working on it."
Anyway.
Palin waxes poetic like an Obamacan for a moment:
Finally, we must consider each candidate's vision for the future and decide which fits our visions...
But then she undercuts that by linking Ulmer to her "environmental supporters" in a way that would have made the McCain of old cringe, and by making the argument that the "best social program in the world" is development -- presumably like the Walmart that had just gone up in the town where Palin was mayor.
But she's not done gobbling her own foot in foreshadow.
She ends thus:
I encourage Alaska women to consider the candidates carefully and join me and other Alaska women who won't use gender against a candidate. Vote for Frank Murkowski on Tuesday.
Hmmm...who's trying to use gender against a candidate, now? How much of a maverick can Palin be if she's so eager to be used as a pawn?
For the record, Murkowski won the 2002 election by 35,000 votes, 56%-36%.