“Alaska Women Reject Palin” Organizers Receive Threats

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UPDATE: Radio host suspended for airing anti-Palin protesters’ numbers

A local group that opposes Gov. Sarah Palin’s policies have received dozens of voicemails full of harassment and threats. It seems a right-wing talk radio host Burke announced two of the organizers names and phones numbers.

But on Wednesday Burke resorted to name calling when he found out Alaska Women Reject Palin planned to host a Saturday rally.

“They’re a bunch of socialist maggots, that’s what I’m going to call them — socialist maggots, that’s what they are, a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots,” said Burke.

Nothing held these women back, not even threatening messages could stop them from planning their rally to oppose Sarah Palin. These progressive women rallied 1,700 in Anchorage to show opposition to McCain-Palin which is an incredible turnout. Approximately 1,500 people rallied to show their support of Governor Palin.

Michelle Goldberg from The Nation had this to report.

Carol Thompson, a primary school teacher in Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, has been galled by the mainstream media’s infatuation with the governor’s rugged yet glamorous Danielle Boone persona. “What amazes me is the fascination with her back story, when Alaska is filled with women who have much more interesting stories than she does,” she said. “She’s one of hundreds of thousands of very fascinating Alaskan women who hunt and fish and ski and build their own houses. I was living in a tent when I had my child!”

Thompson pointed to the woman next to her, who lives in Palmer, a town about thirteen miles from Wasilla. “Bridgette was hiking on a glacier two days before she had her child, and picking blueberries a week after she had her baby. And that does not qualify us for being Vice President.” The two of them were so horrified by the prospect of a Palin presidency that they drove nearly an hour to Anchorage on Saturday to join a rally called Alaska Women Reject Palin.

A Wasilla resident, Leslie Cornick, who teaches marine biology at Alaska Pacific University said “Pit bull is really the appropriate reference for her.”

“I hear all this talk about how everybody wants someone just like them in the White House. I’m sorry, I have a PhD, and I still want someone smarter than I am in the White House,” Cornick added. “I want someone in the White House, or next to the White House, who has some finesse, who has some critical thinking skills, who has some ability to synthesize information rather than just knee-jerk react to everything. And that’s her tendency. As more and more Alaskans tell people in the rest of the world what this woman is really about…I just have to hope that as the truth comes out about her, people are going to think twice when they get in the voting both.”

I would say that the country is finally getting a real view of how women in Alaska really feel about Palin in the White House. By Alaska’s standards that was a fantastic turnout considering the distances many had to travel to get there. Her regressive views on women’s rights are not shared by as many women as we were lead to believe. One blogger from Alaska speculates that they had to drum up people for the crowd to support Palin. That one gave me a chuckle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was accurate..