"I taught Sarah to shoot and butcher a moose ... Washington won't scare her"

**Splash Log** · 09-14-2008, 09:45 PM

SARAH PALIN learned to call the shots at an early age â€” she got to grips with a gun at eight and made her first kill at ten.

The moose-hunting mum-of-five from Alaska grew up shooting animals and skinning them on the spot before hauling the meat home for the family freezer.

Sarahâ€™s dad Chuck Heath shot a grizzly bear three years ago and its skin adorns a sofa in Sarahâ€™s office. Now she is in the political bear pit after accepting the Republican Vice-Presidential nomination.

Chuck told The Sun: â€œSarah was always very determined. Whatever she lacked in skill she always made up in determination. She always tried her hardest to be the best at everything she did.

â€œShe was also very stubborn. I wasnâ€™t mean to her but I taught her discipline. But I could seldom bend her if sheâ€™d made her mind up on something.

Proud ... Sarah Palin's dad Chuck Heath

Proud ... Sarah Palin's dad Chuck Heath

â€œShe started shooting a gun when she was eight and shot her first animal when she was ten. It was something small, possibly a rabbit.

â€œShe is a really good shot. I taught her to shoot a moose and dress it, to fish and hunt for game.

â€œWe raised our family to be able to support ourselves â€” 90 per cent of our meat and fish we get ourselves.â€

He admitted he was in a â€œdreamlandâ€ when Palin accepted the offer to run with Preidential hopeful John McCain.

Mr Heath, who retired from teaching science and now works for the Federal Wildlife Services Program, continued: â€œI would tell those boys in Washington, â€˜Donâ€™t underestimate her.â€™

â€œSheâ€™s a hard worker and a determined lady. The Democrats wonâ€™t break her.â€

Palin served two terms as mayor of her home town of Wasilla, then in 2006 became Alaskaâ€™s youngest and first female governor.

Now, at 44, the former beauty queen aims to become the USAâ€™s first female Vice-President.

I headed to Wasilla in moose-hunting season to experience for myself how the Republicansâ€™ â€œpitbull in lipstickâ€ grew up.

Wasilla â€” whose population of 7,000 has been mocked by her Democrat rivals â€” is a colourful mix of prosperous oil workers, hunters and hard-grafting families 50 miles north east of Anchorage.

The main street is lined timber yards, the ramshackle Mug-Shot Saloon â€” where prospectors once paid for beer with gold nuggets â€” and charmingly named shops, including Big Shot Taxidermy, Bunny Boots and Happy Hooker Tows.

Here Sarah is like a rock star.

She lives in a sprawling house on the banks of a lake and her handsome, part-Inuit, snowmobile champ husband Todd â€” the â€œfirst dudeâ€ â€” has his sea plane moored at the end of a pontoon.

A cut above ... teen Sarah Palin, centre, helps butcher an animal

A cut above ... teen Sarah Palin, centre, helps butcher an animal

Jessica Steele, the creator of Sarahâ€™s much admired hairdo, lives here too. She said Alaskaâ€™s governor could easily mix politics, children and highlights.

Jessica, owner of the Beehive Beauty Shop in Wasilla, said: â€œWe would talk about pedicures and manicures and moose and politics, all while Sarah was having foils in her hair and holding my baby on her lap. We worked on putting her hair up in a move to TONE DOWN her sexy image and make her seem taller.

â€œWe would talk a lot about how if she looked too pretty or too sexy, people wouldnâ€™t listen to her.â€

Until Sarah was named as McCainâ€™s running mate, her neighbours could walk right up to her front door.

Now they have to get past a wall of state troopers and an army of secret service agents, dressed noticeably in black and whispering into radios. Just to be extra safe, two gunboats from the Alaska coastguard are on the fishing lake.

In Wasilla, itâ€™s all about firepower. Alaskaâ€™s gun laws say that anyone aged 18 can buy a rifle, or a handgun if you are over 21. In the Walmart supermarket the gun section is just a short stroll from the beauty section and the Hannah Montana make-up range, right next to the mobile phone chargers.

Over at Wasillaâ€™s specialist Chimo guns, business is brisk.

Prices start at just 219 dollars (Â£110) for a three-inch handgun.

Hunting here is a serious business. You canâ€™t help tripping over stuffed 12ft bears, caribou heads and the odd walrus tusk.

One local store even has a giraffe head or an entire stuffed lion eating a zebra for the more cosmopolitan hunting fan.

Locals say a good moose kill could feed a family for the whole winter â€” served up as burgers, stew, chops and sausages â€” and if you can kill a good moose you are a local hero.

In Alaska, hunter Palin has an approval rating somewhere north of 80 per cent â€” something akin to the Holy Grail in politics.

The Wasilla, locals explain it is for reasons including â€œsheâ€™s a darn good shot and doesnâ€™t take any nonsense from nobodyâ€ to â€œsheâ€™s the best goddamn-looking governor in the country.â€

At a town rally for Palin on Friday night, her dad and mum Sally were swamped by well-wishers.

Sally said: â€œWe are extremely excited for her. But we had no idea this was coming.

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â€œWe had heard she was on the long list but we only learned that John McCain had picked Sarah when a relative called us and told us to turn on the TV.

â€œSince then Iâ€™ve barely had the chance to speak to her, she has been so busy. I did manage to reach her on the phone today and said, â€˜Hang in thereâ€™, but she said she was doing great.â€

Sarah was a good basketball player â€” dubbed Sarah Barracuda for her toughness â€” but entered beauty pageants to earn money for college, winning 1984â€™s Miss Wasilla. After she married Todd she helped him fish commercially in a 26ft boat with no cabin â€” physically demanding work in often treacherous conditions.

Borough mayor Curt Maynard, a close friend of the Palin family, told The Sun: â€œNothing intimidates Sarah, she is fearless.

â€œI have seen her out hunting or fishing and taking on her political rivals. Her political rise has been so fast she seems unstoppable.

â€œFor McCain, she is an inspired pick â€” a woman who can hunt, fish and shoot as well as any man, a great mother and a politician who is not afraid to take on the established old guard.â€ It was Curtâ€™s wife Linda, who is now running for the Senate, who persuaded Sarah to become a beauty queen in the Eighties.

Linda said: â€œSarah was reluctant at first but I suggested she try because the prize money would help pay her college fees.

â€œI helped her get a dress and coached her about how to walk and answer the judgesâ€™ questions.

â€œThe only part she didnâ€™t like was the swimwear â€” she didnâ€™t want people looking at her rear.

â€œBut I never had any doubt that she would win â€” and of course thatâ€™s what happened.

â€œShe was extremely attractive but she answered the judgesâ€™ questions in such a confident manner that I was amazed.â€

Curt added: â€œWe have all been blown away by Hurricane Sarah â€” now the rest of America will see what she is made of.â€

What a badass bitch

**min0 lee** · 09-14-2008, 09:53 PM

�€œshe�€™s

If your going to Ctrl C and then Ctrl v do it right.

**Big Smoothy** · 09-14-2008, 10:12 PM

More stupidity.

Hunting animals has nothing to do with views on policy and competence.

The hunting pics and talk, is for the low-info voter.

It's the issues that matter.

**mcguin** · 09-15-2008, 10:34 AM

Originally Posted by Big Smoothy

More stupidity.

Hunting animals has nothing to do with views on policy and competence.

The hunting pics and talk, is for the low-info voter.

It's the issues that matter.

This picture simply states, "I'm a lady who's not afraid to get dirty, and I believe in our 2nd amendment rights".

Sincerely,
your "low-info voter"

**TexanTA1996** · 09-15-2008, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by Big Smoothy

The hunting pics and talk, is for the low-info voter.

That's 90% of this country's population.

**The Monkey Man** · 09-15-2008, 06:52 PM

Originally Posted by TexanTA1996

That's 90% of this country's population.

oooh, I like the part where they talked allot about the moose's.

**min0 lee** · 09-15-2008, 07:01 PM

Dat wuz a pertuy moose.

**The Monkey Man** · 09-15-2008, 07:29 PM

Originally Posted by min0 lee

Dat wuz a pertuy moose.

You got a purtee moose .

**min0 lee** · 09-15-2008, 07:31 PM

Still a disturbing scene.

**Big Smoothy** · 09-15-2008, 07:45 PM

Originally Posted by TexanTA1996

That's 90% of this country's population.

When I was studying this field, I studied statistical data on voters that were interviewed, literally at the voting centers, after they had voted.

You are right, Texan. About 9 out of 10 were considered to not have enough general, basic knowledge to cast a vote on the candidates and issues.

**Witmaster** · 09-16-2008, 04:15 AM

Originally Posted by mcguin

This picture simply states, "I'm a lady who's not afraid to get dirty, and I believe in our 2nd amendment rights".

Sincerely,
your "low-info voter"

**I Are Baboon** · 09-16-2008, 05:35 AM

christ, what's with the terrible copy and paste job here? The atricle is too damn frustrating to try to read.

**busyLivin** · 09-16-2008, 06:33 AM

Originally Posted by Big Smoothy

More stupidity.

Hunting animals has nothing to do with views on policy and competence.

The hunting pics and talk, is for the low-info voter.

It's the issues that matter.

I don't think so. Anyone watch Tod Palin on Greta (Fox News) last night? The guy seems incredibly down to earth & real. The hunting pics are meant for voters to relate, and the Palins do that better than McCain, Biden & Obama.

**Big Smoothy** · 09-16-2008, 06:57 AM

Originally Posted by busyLivin

I don't think so. Anyone watch Tod Palin on Greta (Fox News) last night? The guy seems incredibly down to earth & real. The hunting pics are meant for voters to relate, and the Palins do that better than McCain, Biden & Obama.

This might be so. I haven't seen the polling data on this, if there is any.

Again, it's about the packaging. It's marketing. Political marketing.

Bells & whistles, photo-stops, and repeating the same speech that was written by Mathew Scully for the convention over....and over....and over....and over.

And at the moment, it seems to be working.

**Dale Mabry** · 09-16-2008, 07:13 AM

Originally Posted by Big Smoothy

This might be so. I haven't seen the polling data on this, if there is any.

Again, it's about the packaging. It's marketing. Political marketing.

Bells & whistles, photo-stops, and repeating the same speech that was written by Mathew Scully for the convention over....and over....and over....and over.

And at the moment, it seems to be working.

It's the same with Obama. How can people make any concrete decision on who they are voting for when no one knows a significant amount about the candidate's stance on any issues?

**Big Smoothy** · 09-16-2008, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Dale Mabry

It's the same with Obama. How can people make any concrete decision on who they are voting for when no one knows a significant amount about the candidate's stance on any issues?

I agree.

**Big Smoothy** · 09-16-2008, 10:14 AM

Here is a brief snippet from an article on the thick and varied wall called "media fog."

.....That episode reflects what has emerged as one of the most frustrating challenges that McCain and Obama are facing going into the final weeks of this campaign: the ways in which the proliferation of communications channels, the fracturing of mass media and the relentless political competition to own each news cycle are combining to reorder the way voters follow campaigns and decide how to vote. It has reached a point where senior campaign aides say they are no longer sure what works, as they stumble through what has become a daily campaign fog, struggling to figure out what voters are paying attention to and, not incidentally, what they are even believing.

U.S. candidates struggle with a proliferation of news sources

Matthew Dowd, who was the chief strategist for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign in 2004, said that given a proliferation of news sources — and the fact that so many once-trusted news organizations are under attack — campaigns would be wise to discard the standard playbook.

Dowd went so far as to suggest that McCain and Obama were wasting their money on television advertisements, and that they would be better off preparing for the coming debates. Those encounters, he said, are likely to be the only chance the candidates have at capturing the undivided attention of the public.

"At this point, the ability to create and drive a message narrative is all but impossible," he said. "There's just so much stuff. The average person has 90 channels. They all get the dot-coms. They all get a newspaper. There is so much flow of information that they just to begin to discount it all."

Entire: Obama and McCain strive to break through media fog - International Herald Tribune

**busyLivin** · 09-16-2008, 03:27 PM

Now here's some real honest campaigning...

Barack Obama’s campaign was “deceitful” when it clipped part of an interview in which Republican Victory 2008 Chairwoman Carly Fiorina said John McCain was not qualified to be the head of a corporation, Fiorina said Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, appeared on MSNBC, where she said none of the candidates is qualified to run a major corporation, but that should not prevent them from running the country.

“I don’t think John McCain could run a major corporation. I don’t think Barack Obama could run a major corporation. I don’t think Joe Biden could run a major corporation. But on the other hand a major corporation is not the same as being the president or vice president of the United States,” Fiorina said.

“It is a fallacy to suggest that the country is like a company. So of course to run a business you have to have a lifetime of experience in business, but that’s not what Sarah Palin, John McCain, Joe Biden or Barack Obama are doing,” she said.

But the Obama campaign, pointing to a version of Fiorina’s statement that was clipped after the first sentence, berated McCain for not winning the trust of even his own supporters.

“When John McCain’s top economic adviser doesn’t think that he’s qualified to run a corporation — how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis?” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement accompanying the shortened clip.

“Apparently even the people who run his campaign agree that the economy is an issue that John McCain doesn’t understand as well as he should. Senator Obama has been ahead of the curve trying to prevent this crisis and he’s called for new rules of the road to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Fiorina lashed back at the suggestion she doesn’t trust McCain and said Obama is the least qualified of any of the candidates to run the country.

“I think this is a pattern of the Obama campaign. What they did was deceitful. They literally cut words off,” Fiorina told FOX News.

“Secondly, they are sort of flooding the zone with nonsense. Look, different experiences prepare you for different jobs. Sarah Palin and John McCain are uniquely experienced to be the president and vice president of the United States. Barack Obama is the least qualified candidate running today in terms of his executive experience, in terms of his time in public office. So I think the Obama campaign would do very well to stop hurling the experience argument, because their candidate for president has less than any one else for office right now on these two tickets,” she said.

**Prince** · 09-16-2008, 03:35 PM

politicians are corrupt, ALL of them.

**Witmaster** · 09-16-2008, 11:08 PM

Originally Posted by Prince

politicians are corrupt, ALL of them.

Well now aren't YOU just the bright shining example of faith and optimism.

**Will Brink** · 09-18-2008, 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by Splash Log

SARAH PALIN learned to call the shots at an early age ï¿½â‚¬â€ she got to grips with a gun at eight and made her first kill at ten.

And had her 9th kid by 12 no?

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