From the Joliet Herald News -
September 26, 2008
Nominee ill-equipped to be a leader
I was happy to see women so evident in this year's presidential election. However, I don't just want a woman leading this country. I want a wise, diplomatic female leader and Sarah Palin's record, despite her smooth speeches, shows her ill-equipped to provide such leadership.
Palin has shamelessly promoted her image as a soccer mom but the fact that under her leadership Alaska has the lowest rate of high school graduation in the country says more to me than her support of school athletics. Likewise she pledges to work for special-needs children, yet she slashed funding for schools for special needs kids by 62 percent.
She claims to be "green," yet her record shows blind support of oil drilling, attempts to weaken the status of endangered animals, exploitation of Alaska's diminishing environmental resources and a disbelief in the greenhouse effect.
Palin is campaigning against wasteful government spending, yet as mayor of Wasilla, she hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per capita request in the nation.
Palin tells us she is proud to be a redneck and compares herself to a pit bull. Ignorance, intolerance and a tendency toward dishonesty are hardly the leadership traits this country so desperately needs. I pray Americans will look past Palin's pretty promises to her record, which is painfully out-of-touch with American values.
Joan Davis
Shorewood