Sarah Palin, Elitist

Marcy Wheeler gets at something I missed in the first read of Sarah Palin's taxpayer-funded payments to herself for travel to her own home in Alaska:

As Governor, Palin's first purportedly anti-Juneau act came when she took the oath--it in Fairbanks, not Juneau. Then, she told her Commmissioners they didn't have to live in Juneau.

But overall in the last few months she’s seen less of Palin, who’s moved most of her operations up to Anchorage, the biggest city in Alaska and a place much friendlier to the sort of conservative pro-business pro-drilling stance that’s marked her tenure as governor. “She had started off by telling her Commissioners that none of them had to live in Juneau, which makes Juneauites nervous. We’re always convinced that they’re going to try and move the State Capitol again.”

In fact, when Palin called a special legislative session earlier this year to push through her pipeline plan, she wasn't in Juneau that much [...]

But that's just Sarah and her top aides--the Executive--that have effectively been working outside of Juneau.

She has also said she would not veto an ongoing attempt to move the legislature out of Juneau--even though the measure would bypass a measure passed in 1994 that gives Alaskan voters a say in whether the capitol will move or not.

It seems that Governor Palin's a pretty big fan of moving out of Juneau--or at least not being in Juneau.

Wasilla is not actually a small town. It's part of the metro region of Anchorage in what is a small state. It's closer to a suburb, or more to the point an exurb, than a small town. Juneau, which is 600 miles away, has a population of about 30,000 in its metro area, but it's smaller than Anchorage.

This would be like if Arnold Schwarzenegger decided he would never move to Sacramento and instead run the state out of his home in Brentwood. And then charge taxpayers for his per diem expenses for living at home.

It's actually kind of an elitist pose. She'd rather be with her own near the big city of Anchorage than go down to that cowtown Juneau. That's kind of being missed here.