"What happened to Sarah Palin? How did someone who so effectively dealt with the two great issues vexing Alaska fall from grace so quickly? Anyone looking back at her record can’t help but wonder: How did a popular, reformist governor beloved by Democrats come to embody right-wing resentment?"
In an
Atlantic article called
The Tragedy of Sarah Palin, Joshua Green charts her political career in the state government, and describes how she became enormously popular as governor by adopting policies inimical to today's Republican party in order to accomplish significant beneficial goals for Alaska:
She challenged supposedly inviolable political precepts, and embraced more-nuanced realities: Republicans sometimes must confront powerful business interests; to govern effectively, you have to cooperate with the other side; you sometimes must raise taxes to balance a budget; and doing these things can actually enhance rather than destroy your career, whatever anybody says.
Unfortunately, according to Green, rather than play on her previous successes, she was given a script in the national campaign that called for her to turn her back on her tax-raising cooperation with Democrats and instead veer hard to the right in an all-out attack on Obama.
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