A professor traveled more than 1,500 miles from Alaska to tell U students that he doesn’t understand Sarah Palin.
Clive Thomas, a political science professor from the University of Alaska Southeast, delivered a cursory overview of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s meteoric rise to fame at the Hinckley Institute on Thursday.
The overriding message of Thomas’ speech, titled “Sarah Palin and Alaska: Past, Present and Future,” was that Palin remains utterly enigmatic even to scholars such as himself who have been following her career since the early days.
A smattering of facts about Palin’s career, personal life and the political environment in Alaska provide the only guide to understanding Palin, Thomas suggested.
“A maverick is someone who is really unpredictable,” Thomas said, referring to the label Palin used during her campaign for vice president to paint herself as an independent reformer.
Alaskans are strongly opposed to big government, even though government agencies employ some 30 percent of the population, which is nearly twice the rate of most states, he said.
“Alaska’s political culture is, in fact, dependent individualism,” Thomas said. “That’s an oxymoron if ever there was one.”
Thomas said that Palin owes her fame and success not only to her ability to tap popular Alaskan sentiments, but also to her good looks and sheer luck.
He compared Palin to former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, arguing that Palin doesn’t have nearly the same skill as Meir but has managed to achieve political success anyway.
“If Sarah Palin looked like Golda Meir, she probably would not be where she is today,” Thomas said.
Thomas also touched on the former vice presidential candidate’s controversies, including her decision to resign as governor in July. He speculated that she wouldn’t run for the Senate in Alaska and probably wouldn’t win the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
1) travel over a thousand miles AWAY from Alaska, even though;
2) Alaska is where he lives, and;
3) Alaska is where Sarah Palin ALSO lives;
4) the purpose of his trip is the TRASH her, and;
5) somehow in his mind it makes sense to do all of this in Utah.
I have no interest in his comments, and I can't understand why anyone else would either. But... to each his own.