Part One of a three-part review
The Making of a Grassroots Activist

SARAH LOUISE PALIN, former governor of the State of Alaska and Republican nominee for vice president in 2008 is NOT running for president in 2012. But that does not lessen the significance of a new book entitled Sarah Palin Out of Nowhere, partly because Sarah Palin is not going away (as much as some people would like to think she is), but mostly because the book is about much more than just Sarah Palin.

As much as anything, Sarah Palin Out of Nowhere is the story of the grassroots activism of its author, an ordinary American, who, himself, because of his concern about the country going in the wrong direction, came out of nowhere to exert a significant influence on the political process. Going back even further, it is the story of the author's personal journey of discovery, in which he both found himself and came to an understanding of the greatness of the American Idea.

Sarah Palin Out of Nowhere is an important work for other reasons as well. Written by Frank Aquila who was San Joaquin County, California, chairman for the 2008 John McCain for President campaign and who was influential in the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate, the book is important historically because it is, to a great extent, a primary source. It records the author's own experiences and observations during a critical time in American political history and includes full texts of emails and other correspondence relevant to the 2008 election and not otherwise available. It will, for that reason, be of interest to serious historians for some time to come.

In addition, the book shines a searchlight on the biased and distorted coverage of the 2008 election campaign by the so-called "mainstream" media, contrasting their sycophantic adulation of Obama with their incessant smearing of Palin with complete disregard for facts. It is relevant today, because we see those same patterns in media coverage of the 2012 campaign.

Sarah Palin Out of Nowhere contrasts vividly the character, qualifications and beliefs of Palin with those of Barak Obama. In the process, it catalogues extensively, although by no means exhaustively, the influences that have shaped and influenced the development of Obama's thinking, his worldview, and his notions of what America is versus what he believes it ought to be.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ADS
(Please note that Perspicacity Press does not select and does not necessarily endorse these Google ads.)

Finally, the author talks a great deal about the serious issues facing the United States and the very different visions that progressives such as Obama and Conservatives such as Palin have regarding how to deal with those issues and what the outcomes ought to be. The pertinence of these topics to the coming election and the future of America have not diminished with Palin's decision not to jump into the fray as a candidate.

In the process of all of this, Mr. Aquila presents his own "solutions for the restoration of America."

That is a lot of ground for one book to cover, and yet there is much cohesiveness to the book. That cohesiveness derives from the fact that everything the author talks about is relevant to our current political situation in the United States and the decisions that the electorate will be making over the course of the next 11 months.

In Chapter One of Sarah Palin Out of Nowhere, Aquila talks about his lobbying to get Palin on the ticket as the Republican party's vice presidential nominee. The chapter is of historical interest, as it chronicles an insider's view of the process. But it was Chapter Two, entitled "Grassroots Politics," that really grabbed my interest. It's not about Palin. It's Frank Aquila's personal story, and it's the kind of inspirational biography that young people today need to be reading and seldom do.

If you do not buy or borrow this book for any other reason, if you have school-age children or grandchildren, get a copy of it and read Chapter Two, especially the first few pages of it, with them.

The word "aquila" is Latin and Italian for eagle. In Spanish, the word and the name are spelled with a "g" rather than a "q," so growing up Frank, whose grandparents had immigrated from Italy, was often mistaken for a Hispanic. That led to some eye-opening realizations for him.

Young Frank struggled to learn to read, and he struggled in school. But he persisted, and in high school a teacher encouraged him to attend community college and recommended that he attend an orientation at Los Medanos College, which is located about 30 miles inland from notoriously liberal Berkeley and close to his hometown of Brentwood, California. (Not to be confused with the Brentwood District in Los Angeles.)

"The day I was scheduled to visit the college, I checked in with the bus driver and took a seat," Aquila wrote. "I was quickly called back to the front of the bus, and the driver asked me why I was on the list to attend the college orientation. I tried to explain to her that my counselor had recommended me; but she told me I could not go because the tour was only for 'Hispanic students' and not 'white students.' This was my first encounter with affirmative action, which I feel is glorified racism against poor, white children. Many of my friends were Hispanic, and most were better off than me. Yet, I was discriminated against due to my ethnicity. I believe 'all' people should be treated equally and given an equal opportunity. Unfortunately, after such difficulties, I gave up. I was not going to attend college." And besides, he didn't think that he was smart enough to go to college anyway. "I felt I had achieved enough just by being a high school graduate."

Fortunately, an employer had other ideas, encouraging him to attend classes part time, saying "the key to getting a college degree is to attend each class" and "do the best you can." From that point on, he attended at least one class a semester, earned first an associate of arts degree from Diablo Valley College and then a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from California State University Hayward (now CSU East Bay) with a 3.3 GPA.

Aquila writes about other experiences, as well, that shaped his "conservative thought," and talks about how he became interested and involved in the political process. He recounts the resistance he ran into even within the local Republican Party as he tried to make a difference in the way things were being done, obstacles that led him to form his own political organization, South San Joaquin Republicans, in order to be able to influence the political process.

He relates that one of the activities of the South San Joaquin Republicans, as the 2010 mid-term elections, approached, was a congressional forum in which six candidates participated. It was a "great success," he said. But "although I had a great relationship with all the candidates I was disappointed by the infighting between them. They lost focus on defeating the incumbent and were politically assassinating each other." That bears more than a faint resistance to what is going on currently in the Republican presidential primaries.

Part Two Coming Soon

Source: www.PerspicacityPress.com. Copyright © 2011 Rand Green Communications.
Do not repost without written permission (usually granted on request) or without this notice. Do not extract quotes without proper credit. Plagiarism is a crime. You may link to this page. You may also print copies of the entire page, including the Perspicacity Press banner and this notice, for your own reference and in limited quantities for free distribution to your friends and colleagues.

Click HERE to comment on this article on Facebook.