Has Sarah Palin Tainted Alaska’s Mystique?

This Letterman v. Palin business is getting completely out of hand, and by calling it that we are setting ourselves up for our Governor misquoting the spat as a supreme court case decision that she fundamentally disagrees with.

In the late spring of 2006, I made the decision to throw my poor, unsuspecting dog in the car, and move to Alaska. It started with a drive from the Bay Area in California up to Bellingham Washington, where I hopped on the ferry, enjoyed the boat’s bar for a few days, arrived half asleep and hungover in Haines, drove to Tok, caught a nap, and eventually made my way into Anchorage. Despite my chaotic travels in the past sending me to every other state in the union, and a fair share of Europe and Japan, I found myself here in the last frontier, in late September, making my first stop at the Carr’s on Minnesota and Northern Lights. I was confronted with a very worn down pick-up truck that narrowly missed me as it skid into an open space. The truck had a bumper sticker that read: “Vote Confederate.”

I found a space and pulled in. I turned the engine off, and immediately felt the impact of the rushed move, long journey, and life that I had left behind. Before entering Carr’s, I simply sat in silence and smoked two cigarettes until the embers and filters were bedfellows. I was not in the Bay any more.

The gubernatorial race was in full swing by the time I finally was able to admit that, no matter how badly I wished it, Comcast wasn’t going to sweep in and save the day. However, GCI provided me with coverage of one of the debates between Knowles, Halcro, and Palin. I don’t remember all that much about the discussion, but I did remember hearing Palin field one question about Creationism, and I remember her stating that she still believed in it. The “vote confederate” bumper sticker flashed through my mind, just for a brief second. Thankfully, Andrew Halcro was there to pick up the pieces, actually sounding like what you would want a gubernatorial candidate to sound like. Sadly, in true independant fashion, he didn’t even muster ten percent of the vote. I have a hunch he’ll do a bit better next time around, but that’s another story entirely.

When I was back in California, playing music, it was a landscape comparable to what we face now in Alaska. Grey Davis had just been recalled and the “Governator” was installed in Sacramento on the promise of fixing the budget shortfalls with his “own money” if he had to. Every state I visited during that time period looked down on California (a sentiment very much shared up here, for reasons both good and bad) for our poor political decisions. We were the butt of the joke. The kindergarten cop was running our state. It was time to unveil the plans for Skynet, let the machines rise, and increase taxes. He and Danny Devito would finally get hitched and raise their kid in the state capitol. Maria Schriver has three breasts, like “the chick in Total Recall.” There were many jokes. It was a rough go while touring.

I was pretty sure that Alaska would be a fine refuge to escape the kind of sentiment surrounding Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the short-sighted, gimmick vote that put him in office.

Yeah, that lasted.

Is Sarah Palin’s choice (and it is a choice) to involve herself almost exclusively on the national level, and only in matters not substantial but venomous and tabloid-ready, causing real damage to the lower forty eight’s perception of Alaska? I know that there is an almost ubiquitous reaction by folks up here to shrug off the importance of what outsiders might think of us. We are cut off. People that have never been up here for any substantial period of time don’t get it. And we all have stories of people not getting it.

But we have to be aware of the costs to us, as a society, when a figurehead like Palin abandons the residents of the state she is the Governor of, while running around the country accusing a well respected talk show host of wanting to rape her fourteen year old daughter, all while under the banner of the Alaskan flag.

Remember when the Deadliest Catch first caught the attention of television audiences around the country, and the world? Remember how so many people were routing for Kai on the Biggest Loser? Remember how many copycat shows were all rallying around the theme of filming and capturing life in Alaska? Men in Trees, the Simpsons Movie, Emergency Vets, Alaska Week on the Discovery Channel, Ice Truckers, Expedition Alaska, the Alaska Experiement, Survivor Man: Alaska, Iditarod… It goes on and on, until McCain announced his running mate.

And then the tone shifted. Despite, as a state, offering lucrative tax incentives to companies interested in filming here, there was definitely something new happening. The television shows were still ensconced in Alaska-fever, but it wasn’t Les Stroud braving the arctic wilderness. It wasn’t the crew of the Northwestern being filmed in the Bering Sea. It was Jessica Yellin and Kyra Phillips from CNN. It was Greta Van Susteren from Fox News. Troopergate, rape kits, rumors of banned books, Bristol and Levi, the bridge to nowhere, the Charlie Gibson interview, the Katie Couric interview, “Pallin’ around with terrorists,” Meg Stapleton, RNC money spent on her clothes, the First Dude, the Thanksgiving Day Turkey…

It is a reality that every one, rich and famous or poor and struggling, has their issues. “Liberal California” still has Bakersfield and Orange County, Bill Clinton still has Monica Lewinski, Mark Foley and Larry Craig still have “urges,” and Hugh Grant still has Divine Brown. We all have dirty laundry, it just comes in different baskets. The problem, and it’s a new one for Alaska, is what to do when your dirty laundry has national interest? Sarah Palin, and Meg Stapleton (good lord, Meg Stapleton), have not learned how to start the rinse cycle and turn a new page; one with fabric softener.

It is not Sarah Palin that is to blame for Alaska losing its sex appeal. It is her inability to maturely and responsibly address this issue, combined with stubborn pride, and a brazen lack of interest in anyone’s opinion aside from her own. Every family has a drunken uncle, a disappointing son, a slutty sister, a cougar aunt; you can insert your own experience here. What, through societal adaptation, human beings have tried to organize is a uniform approach where we don’t put them all on television. Almost every family has a calm and collected individual, some times maternal and other times paternal (sanity is an equal opportunity employer), who steps out in front and handles the public family business, while making sure that the absurdities that are inherent in every household are kept behind closed doors, where they are dealt with quietly.

Sarah Palin has kicked the door wide open and aired out all of our dirty laundry, to the extent that people viewing from home, who are isolated from us in a way that is even more drastic than how we are cut off from them, are gaining the perception that we are all inarticulate, gossiping, vindictive, ideological, nonsensical narcissists with sociopathic tendencies. And when she went on Saturday Night Live and did her little musical number on Weekend Update, where she signed her name on the check.

In case you forgot, here you go:

The result? Unless we tighten up and say “No” to this image that has been thrust upon us by our own volition, look to a future of naive commentary. Not in the same ballpark as an accurate depiction of Alaskan life and culture, but every-day “Joe Six-pack” only has this paint-by-numbers etching of our reality up here, which Sarah Palin has hand delivered to the “gotcha elite liberal media” who she can’t seem to stop supplying with crude and childish material, to our own deteriment as a state, culture, and community.

Go Sarah Go. Anywhere but here.