David Neiwert has a must-read blog post up now about his interview with John Stein, who she defeated in a 1996 election to be Wasilla mayor. Stein was the incumbent, and while it seems like the race for small town mayor shouldn’t be that big a deal, Stein describes a campaign that was more of a referendum on all sorts of right wing bugaboos and obsessions. Gun control and abortion were major issues, even though small town mayors have no ability to affect these issues in any substantial way. Palin rode to victory by playing kissy-face with the black helicopter nuts and the worst sort of Bible-thumpers, who ran a whisper campaign that included rumors that Stein is Jewish. (He’s Lutheran.)
Anyone who has had the “fortune” of meeting the Alex Jones-esque super paranoid right wingers should grasp what Palin’s natural constituency is---it’s the guys that Mike Judge was making fun of when he created the character Dale Gribble, who was routinely sure the government, in alliance no doubt with aliens, was out to get him.
Seriously these guys are awesome, except their paranoias might catapult a total wingnut into the White House.