Free Going Rogue: An American Life by Lynn Vincent, Sarah Palin Page B

cOlrimerciai salmon and herring fisheries closed after the disaster. And the fallout yielded more
    only
    bankruptcies and foreclosures, but (due to poor choices sometimes made in the face ofadverse circumstances) divorces, alcohol abuse, and even suicides.
    Most everyone we knew was directly affected, knew someone directly affected, or went to help clean up the spill. Todd was just starting his fulltime Slope job with BP; we wondered if the job would still be there when the smoke cleared. The rumor was that Alaska’s oil production would shut down, which I believed would be an unnecessary, knee-jerk reaction that would destroy our state’s ability to recover. Molly, Chuck, Dad, and many of our friends headed to the Sound to drive skiffs and scrub shoreline rocks, steam down recovery vessels, and rescue and wash animals slicked in oil.
    After a long clean-up effort, as days rolled into weeks, then months, then years, Alaskans’ frustration mounted as Exxon .
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    Mobile steadily refused to step up and pay the penalty the courts decided it owed for destroying the livelihoods and lifestyles of so many families and communities. And no one in local, state, or national government seemed able to hold the corporate giant accountable. ExxonMobil’s litigation compounded the suffering, especially for Cordova and Valdez fishermen. Court challenges stretched on for twO decades. It took twenry years for Alaska to achieve victory. As governor I directed our attorney general to file an amicus brief on behalf of plainriffs in the case, and, thanks to Alaska’s able attorneys arguing in fronr of the highest court in the land, in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the people. Finally, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.
    When the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef, I was a young motherto-be with a blue-collar husband headed up to the Slope. I hadn’t yet envisioned running
    elected office. But looking hack, I
    see that the tragedy planted a seed in me: If I ever had a chance to serve my fellow citizens, I would do so, and 1’d work for the ordinary, hardworking people-like everyone who was a part of my ordinary, hardworking world.
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Chapter Two
    Kitchen-Table Politics
    Criticism is something we can avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing.
    -ARISTOTLE
    W henIfirstgot intoWasillacitypolitics,Iwasn’t
    even sure how to pronounce the mayor’s name. I
    kept up with state and national politics, but Mayor John Stein was relatively new to the community and was elected while I was away at college. Then I came home, got married, and got busy raising babies and living life.
    It was Nick Carney, the self-proclaimed local mover and shaker and presidenr of rhe Wasilla Chamber of Commerce, who set me on the path of public service. Wasilla was his town. His wife led the local library board. The two of them were big golfers and liked to wear visors and golf shorts atound a town where a lot of folks wore Carhartts and, Bunny Boots, the fat rubber army boots that are incomparable for keeping your feet warm and dry (and the more duct-taped they are, the more Alaskan you are). Nick was running for Seat F on the six_member Wasilla City Council, and in 1992 he recruited me to run for Seat E. He told •
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    me about a group that called itself WOW (Watch on Wasilla) that was looking for young, “progressive” candidates. “The city would do well to have you serve,” he said. In those days, the word “progressive” wasn’t necessarily associated with liberalism, although that’s what they meant by it. I took it in the more common sense spirit of”progressing” our young city by providing the tools for the private sector to grow and prosper. The group, which was backed by the local newspaper, the Frontiersman, also supported Carney and Mayor Stein. I fit the demographic they were looking for: as the newspaper editor put it, a “young, sharp Wasilla resident who lived inside