PROOF, BY GOLLY
Who says Sarah Palin has no foreign-policy experience?
It was just over two years ago, in September 2006, that the then-Alaskan gubernatorial candidate-turned-Republican vice presidential candidate sent out a dinner invitation to none other than Britain’s Prince Charles.
Having read that the Prince of Wales had been panned in Scotland for snubbing Scottish salmon in favor of Alaskan salmon, Mrs. Palin invited the future king to dinner in Alaska as a way of thanking him for his excellent taste in fish.
“The prince clearly has a taste for the real deal,” Mrs. Palin was quoted as saying, recalling that Prince Charles had been taken to task throughout Scotland for ordering Alaskan fish to sell through his food company.
“Our salmon are the most spectacular in all of the world,” Mrs. Palin agreed.
The candidate could not be specific in her invite as to where she might host the prince, who never showed up for dinner anyway, or else we would have all known about it.
“If we do it at the governor’s mansion, that means the people of Alaska have honored me to host our guests in Juneau,” she said at the time. “If not, we make a pretty mean grilled salmon in Wasilla, too.”
Who knows, depending on her performance in Thursday’s debate against Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mrs. Palin in the not-so-distant future could be grilling her fish at the vice-presidential mansion on Massachusetts Avenue.
PALIN COMPARISON
Seriously, who isn’t getting into the Sarah Palin act?
From comedian Tina Fey’s uncanny impersonation of the Republican vice presidential hopeful on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” to the “Palin Comparison” look-a-like contest/party thrown by New York magazine’s Jonah Green and Newsweek’s Sam Henig, few times in modern political history has a relative political newcomer been yanked into the national spotlight, only to take the world by storm.
“What an inspiration,” read the invitation of the aforementioned scribes. “If not as a leader, then at least as a fashion icon. The hair! The glasses!”
Jan McGinley understands better than most. The executive assistant of Burke & Herbert Bank and Trust Co. in Alexandria, Virginia’s oldest banking institution, suddenly has found herself caught in the middle of all the Sarah Palin hype through mere resemblance alone.
Anybody who has ever walked into the lobby of the main branch of the bank at King and Fairfax streets in Old Town has encountered Mrs. McGinley hard at work. But only in the past month or so have customers quietly approach her wooden desk to whisper:
“Has anybody ever told you that you look like Sarah Palin?”
“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” Mrs. McGinley told Inside the Beltway Wednesday. “At least Sarah Palin has put eyeglasses back in fashion.”
BARACK SPECIAL
Speaking of Alaskan salmon, we’re learning more every day about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, including that he frequently places a healthy lunch order to go at TenPenh restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest.
One of his favorite meals on the menu of the Southeast Asian cuisine restaurant: grilled salmon, steamed broccoli and jasmine rice.
GOOD AND BAD
Yes, Virginia, the hoopla surrounding the 2008 presidential race is genuine.
According to American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate, average voter turnout in the 2008 presidential primaries reached its second-highest level ever, barely a half percentage point short of its apex in 1972.
“The level of presidential-primary turnout speaks to the intense interest in this year’s presidential election,” said Curtis Gans, director of CSAE.
Sadly, however, average voter turnout in statewide primaries for governor and U.S. senator, which did not occur on the same day as presidential primaries, fell to a record low.
“The turnout level for the other primaries speaks to the poor health of American democracy and the diminishing religion of civic duty,” he said. “That combination makes it difficult to predict the level of turnout in what is still likely to be a high turnout in November’s general election.”
Turnout in the presidential primaries was recorded at more than 57.3 million, or just over 30 percent of the eligible vote.
• John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or John McCaslin.
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