>>Please tell me more about her positions and why she is to the left of Democrats.<<
Poor choice of words on my part. Some aspects of her policies are to the left of some Democrats, but she's hardly a leftist. So what is she? Sara "Barracuda" calls herself a conservative, but I'd call her a Republican progressive in the vein of Teddy Roosevelt and Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette. She's a pro-family, god-loving, gun-carrying, trust-busting, corporate-taming champion of Alaska, the common folk, and small business.
When she defeated incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary, the big oil business interests shifted their political support to her Democratic opponent in the general election. He was a former oil man with a reputation for cooperating with the industry. But Palin won with broad support from Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Greens who were tired of the way big oil dominates this state.
After being elected, she proceeded to smack big oil with several roundhouse punches:
1) Rammed through a HUGE windfall profits tax increase on oil and gas production.
2) Passed the Alaska Gas Line Inducement Act (AGIA), to open up the gasline development process and break the stranglehold of the big three North Slope producers.
3) Revoked the Point Thomson oil/gas leases, which Exxon and others have been sitting on for decades. These valuable leases, right next to ANWR, contain about 1/4 of the natural gas reserves on the North Slope. This action was taken because the companies failed to develop the leases, and now it's going to court.
So I'm greatly puzzled about the Palin VP boomlet. At a national level, it's Democrats like Nancy Pelosi that want to tax windfall profits and revoke leases over the failure to drill. Since Republicans are pro big oil and anti-tax, why would they support Sarah Palin for VP when her positions line up more with the Democrats? I think Sarah could end up in Congress someday, but being on the national ticket seems like a tough fit. Big oil hates her guts.
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