3,000 chant "Sar-RAH!" as Alaska's Gov. Palin goes home -- briefly
Well, Gov. Sarah Palin is back home in Alaska tonight for the first time since officially becoming a candidate for vice president. Some 3,000 supporters showed up to welcome her in Fairbanks despite sub-zero temperatures and a wind-driven blizzard of snow.
Just kidding about the temperature and snow. But what do the Lower 48 know anyway?
A mixture of Republicans, Palin supporters and curious residents and tourists watched as confetti flew and a college band played, according to The Times' Stephen Braun, who was on hand as Palin's newly chartered campaign jet landed after a long flight from Washington with a refueling stop in Montana.
The crowd crammed into a cavernous, flag-festooned hangar chanting the now familiar "Sar-RAH! Sar-RAH!" (See video below.)
"I will do my best to do Alaska proud," the 44-year-old governor vowed as she stood with her husband, Todd, whom she calls "the first dude," and three of their five children -- Piper, Willow and infant Trig.
It was Palin's first solo campaign foray and she stuck pretty much to her standard stump speech, built around the biography and maverickness of the top of the ticket, Sen. John McCain.
"This is our girl," Dory Powell, a 67-year-old retiree, told Braun, whose complete arrival story is available here. "She's brought the Republican Party to life." Numerous mothers brought daughters wearing T-shirts proclaiming: "When I grow up I want to be just like Sarah Palin."
"It's going to be awesome to spend a couple of days back here," Palin told the crowd, "getting in touch with all my friends." She'll also participate in a troop departure ceremony for soldiers, including her 19-year-old son Track, headed for deployment in Iraq.
And she is scheduled to sit for several exclusive coming-out interviews with Charles Gibson of ABC News.
Saturday, rumor has it, Palin will appear at a rally in Nevada.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Photo credit: Reuters
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Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Sarah-Sarah-Sarah! America's newest rock star! Alaska 's approval rating now 85%. Republicans approval rating @ 90% now. Thank-you!!!!!!
Posted by: Garry Barnes | September 11, 2008 at 01:58 AM
a little bible study for the studious assembly:
'the distinctive legionary symbol of the X legion, legio X fretensis, was a boar [yes, a MALE pig; there is NO historic evidence for its wearing LIPSTICK though].
it was this famed roman 'elite' unit of typically over 3000, that after the destruction of qumran and massada, besieged and bombarded jerusalem in ad 70, and laid waste to the temple with ballistic missiles launched from the mount of olives. for the next 200 years, under legio decima's administration, and submitted to subsequent decimation and alien replacement of the population, the city was called aelia capitolina, devoted to the veneration of jupiter and venus.'
and nt biblical references to 'legion',
include the more well-known episode of a miracle by christ, related as a [partial?] exorcism performed on a man possessed by many demons - legion, by transferring those unclean spirits to a herd of about 2000 pigs grazing nearby, causing those to drown themselves in the sea [we're not told where the demons went after that, nor what happened to the multitude of 1000 unaccounted for].
however, we're told that though the man now seemed in his right mind alright, the people who came to see him were afraid; and the story then proceeds to tell us, how the man with the demons that would have preferred to be with the 'lord', is not allowed to stay but sent instead to proclaim throughout decapolis, how the 'lord' commander of the demons, had been so merciful to him.
(cf. matt 8:28; mark 5:1; luke 8:26)
Posted by: dave | September 11, 2008 at 06:13 AM
I LOVE SArah!! I wanted to show my support so I searched everywhere to find her flag pin and star of service pin. Found 'em and they are wonderful! Go support Sarah and check them out at MCCAINBLING.COM.
Posted by: megan | September 11, 2008 at 09:19 AM
the alteration of some of your cynical blog entries and many little jabs subsequent to critical remarks, won't keep everyone from noticing and keeping track. changing 'spelling mistakes' aimed at abating the efforts of a legitimate presidential candidate like RON PAUL, and those who share his freedom message (his delegates in one of your blog articles at first were referred to as 'delebates'), or geared towards more generally attuning the people to evil (mccain/palin supporters first described as chanting 'sar-rah! sar-rah!' - 'prince of evil' or 'lord ra'), cannot prevent some people from seeing where you're coming from; or where you're headed. (and it is not a coincidence when a 'media tycoon' representative of corrupt, cynical and perverted corporate media, declared enemy of the people, of freedom and integrity, spells out the promise to oppress his fellow man and represent the voice of evil, in his very name.)
Posted by: dave | September 11, 2008 at 10:01 AM