NY Times: Palin's 'Visceral" Management Style Contrasts With Image

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has hired friends and attacked her critics while in office in Juneau, providing a contrast to the image offered by supporters as a woman trying to fight the "good ole boy system," writes Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell of The New York Times tonight.

Ms. Palin walks the national stage as a small-town foe of “good old boy” politics and a champion of ethics reform. The charismatic 44-year-old governor draws enthusiastic audiences and high approval ratings. And as the Republican vice-presidential nominee, she points to her management experience while deriding her Democratic rivals, Senators Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., as speechmakers who never have run anything.

But an examination of her swift rise and record as mayor of Wasilla and then governor finds that her visceral style and penchant for attacking critics — she sometimes calls local opponents “haters” — contrasts with her carefully crafted public image.

Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials.