by Mark Silva
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hasn't raised a lot of money in her political career, it turns out, but both fishing and the Republican Party have been good to her.
Sen. John McCain's running mate has raised $1.43 million from 2001 to 2006, Dan Morain tells us at Top of the Ticket - less than what a race for a state Assembly seat might cost. The LA Times has found that she raised most of that -- $1.36 million -- in 2005 and 2006, when she was running for governor. She hasn't raised any money since taking office in December 2006 because her state's laws don't permit any trolling until next May.
Her single greatest source of support: The Republican Party, with $75,000. People involved in the fishing industry have donated at least $70,000. The governor's husband is a commercial fisherman.
People listing their business as real estate have donated $46,000, attorneys at least $30,000, and lobbyists $9,800.
Palin, who supports opening a part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development (a move, remind you, which McCain opposes, while he pushes for off-shore drilling), has collected about $13,500 from people involved with oil firms.
The Republican also has friends in organized labor - her husband is a member of the Steelworkers' Union. Unions and self-identified union members have donated $17,000 to her campaigns.
Two days before McCain named her as his running make, the Ticket notes, Palin attended an AFL-CIO convention in Alaska and signed legislation putting up $500 million for TransCanada Corp. to research the possibility of a natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope, which could cost $30 billion and run 1,700 miles. The legislation includes guarantees of union jobs.
"We see eye-to-eye on a lot of stuff," Ron Axtell, vice president of a 1,500-member local of the Laborers Union that has donated to Palin and is in line to receive work on the pipeline, told the L.A. Times. "She is an excellent pick. Most of the people in the state are shocked and pretty jubilant."
"Palin, who has made a practice of assailing Alaska's political culture of corruption, took $5,000 from people affiliated with VECO Corp., the company at the center of the criminal inquiry of Sen. Ted Stevens, also a Republican,'' Morain notes. But Palin is not implicated in any wrongdoing in the matter.
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