Have a Little Patience
Grass roots constituents say give Palin a little time to get her platform together.
Laura Temple lives in Eagle River, Alaska. It’s a bedroom community to Anchorage situated along the Glenn Highway that leads from Anchorage to Palin’s hometown, Wasilla.
She doesn’t see a lack of campaign specifics to be a problem — at least not yet.
Why should politicos care about Temple — a mom from a town that barely gets much of a dot on the state map?
Because, Temple says, she identifies with Palin and because Temple is one active blogger.
“I might not be a hockey mom, but I am a football, soccer, dance mom,” she said.
Temple and her husband, Vic, are parents to 13 children — four of them are adopted.
Their home is a bit like special needs alphabet soup. Two children are autistic, another two suffer from the effects of drug and alcohol consumed by their biological mothers, and another has Cerebral Palsy. Several of the children — biological and adopted — are diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. And just to make things more complex for Temple, who tries to juggle a myriad of therapy appointments and special diets, one of her children also is dyslexic, several suffer from emotional disabilities, and at least one other is mentally retarded.
But somehow through all the challenges her brood faces, Temple manages to stay in touch with a variety of web-based support groups and has contacts all across the United States.
She’s the mom of two U.S. Marines — both previously deployed to Iraq. She set up an Internet support network for parents of deployed service personnel. Temple is a member of several autism-related online support groups, ADD support groups, ADHD support groups, fetal alcohol support groups, and Cerebral Palsy groups. Her membership in the Orthodox Christian faith has given her contacts with people across the country.
And they are all asking her what she thinks.
“Ever since Palin was announced as the VP candidate, I have gotten maybe two or three hours of sleep each night just answering emails full of questions about her, what I think of her, and also trying to correct some of the false information out there about her and about Alaska,” Temple said.
Two Degrees Of Separation
No, she’s never met the governor. But in a state with such a small population base that six degrees of separation is more like two, Temple says she knows many people who know Palin and or have worked with her.
Just to show how easily folks can mix, here’s an example of how the Temple family rubbed shoulders with at least one of the Palin family without even intending to do so.
Last July, two of Temple’s daughters competed in the Miss Alaska scholarship pageant, which Todd Palin, Sarah Palin’s husband - affectionately referred to as the “First Dude” in Alaska - was one of the judges. Temple’s daughters both won scholarship money in the pageant, which is the Last Frontier’s affiliate of the Miss America program. One of her daughters, Veronica Temple, won the Miss Bear Paw pageant in Eagle River in 2007, long before the governor became a national celebrity. Veronica dressed in a costume — red jacket, black pencil skirt, conservative heels, and pinned up hair — resembled the governor so closely that members of the audience were unsure for a few moments if Palin really was on stage.
“But no, I have never met the governor or her husband,” Temple said.
That isn’t stopping her from supporting Palin.
Temple was a registered Republican up until three years ago when she switched her political affiliation to Alaska’s Veterans Party because she has close ties to the service community. She felt the Republican party locally was not doing enough to help veterans with medical issues.
She doesn’t see that Palin’s recent, personal introduction to the world of special needs as a liability.
“Palin comes to speed very quickly,” Temple said. “In some ways, it is an advantage for those of us in the special needs community to potentially have someone in the White House who is just at the beginning stage because she is going to be looking at the whole picture learning from the ground up.”
Official Declaration
Maria Roark of Anchorage agrees with Temple that Palin is an asset to the special needs community.
Roark is mom to two autistic children - one boy and one girl.
“As a fellow special needs mom, I was thrilled with the choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President,” Roark said.
She is a member of the Autism in Alaska online support group listed in Yahoo! Health Groups.
Last April, Roark wrote to Palin’s Juneau offices expressing her desire to see increased autism awareness in keeping with April being Autism Awareness Month. Roark reports that Palin made an official Governor’s decree for the state to recognize the month-long awareness campaign and sent her an official certificate.
“As you read some of the attacks on her since she was announced, you see how much people with special needs are still considered to be inconviences or to have a lower quality of life,” Roark said. “Having Palin working in the White House would be incredible for all the families in our great nation whom are raising children with special needs.”
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