According to Gregg Erickson, columnist and reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and editor at large for the Alaska Budget Report.
Gregg Erickson: Palin, like about 60 percent of Alaska voters, favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Her environmental credentials are, at best, mixed. She favors what we in Alaska call "predator control," including, if necessary, the hunting of wolves from the air. Just recently her Dept. of Fish and Game pulled some wolf cubs from their den and shot them as part of a program to improve moose survival.
Gregg Erickson: Gregg Erickson: She is smart, vivacious and energetic; she tends to oversimplify complex issues, has had difficulty delegating authority, and clearly has difficulty distinguishing the line between her public responsibilities and private wishes. She is under legislative investigation on this, the so-called "troopergate" issue, in which she is said to have used improper influence to try to get her sister's ex-husband fired from the state troopers.
Gregg Erickson: She did curtail state support of the "bridge to nowhere" connecting Ketchikan with its island airport. But contrary to her statement today in Dayton, OH, she didn't send the federal money back. It's available for use in other projects elsewhere.
Her approval ratings are high--65 percent, or so--but down from 80 percent earlier in her term. Most Alaskan's haven't watched her as closely as most reporters or legislators. If you took a poll of reporters and legislators I expect her approval rating would be down in the teens or twenties.
Gregg Erickson: It is clear that she has not paid much attention to the nitty-gritty unglamorous work of government, of gaining consensus, and making difficult compromises. She seems to be of the view that politics should be all rather simple. That often appeals to the wider public, but frustrates those who see themselves as laboring in the less glamorous parts of the vineyard.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/08/29/DI2008082902052.html