What the Alaska media is saying about Sarah Palin

It’s clear that McCain picked Palin for reasons of image, not substance. She’s a woman. She has fought corruption. She has fought the oil companies. She’s married to a union member. These are portrayals for campaign speeches; they are not policy positions.

 Juneau Empire

In a few short years, Sarah Palin moved from small-town mayor with a taste for mooseburgers to the governor's office and now - making history - to John McCain's side as the first female running mate on a Republican presidential ticket.

She has more experience catching fish than dealing with foreign policy or national affairs.  Talk about a rocketing ascent.

Ketchikan Daily News

Selecting Palin is a maverick move for McCain who isn't known for lockstep marching with his own party. But Palin herself doesn't march to the drum of anyone but Palin. She is a servant to what she believes in.

She believes in God and family and heralds her simple roots in Alaska. Raised in small towns by a teacher and a school secretary, she married young and had five children, the latest of whom was born in the spring with Down syndrome. Religious conservatives will welcome her anti-abortion stand.

Kodiak Daily Mirror

Like so many Alaskans, I heard the news about Palin first thing in the morning, and wondered what crazy world I had woken up to. I also finally realized Lehrer wasn’t joking.

McCain pulled a stunt today, the kind I thought American politics had gotten past.

To me it looks like McCain, a politician I have long admired, chose Palin just to have a woman on the ticket.

Mat-Su Valley Frontierman (Wasilla)

Sally and Chuck Heath had no idea what they were about to learn today.  That was before they got a call early this morning telling them to turn on the news. On the screen their daughter, Gov. Sarah Palin, was standing before a raucous crowd in Dayton, Ohio, accepting Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s offer to become his vice presidential running mate.

“I didn’t know,” Chuck Heath said in an interview at his home later Friday morning. “Sarah didn’t say a word to us.” The news has created national buzz over just who Palin is and has brought Alaska to the forefront of media reports across the country. It has also brought the media to the Heath home in Wasilla, where Palin’s parents were still adjusting to the news.

“On a one to 100 scale, it’s about 101,” Sally Heath said of her excitement level.

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