Remember back in the good old days when you went on vacation outside of Alaska and you knew you had this card you could play at any time to strike up a conversation, get something, or use willy-nilly just to see what would happen?

That card, of course, was the “I’m from Alaska” card. And the further from Alaska you were, the more power it seemed to have.

In Atlanta, I used it to impress. In New York City, I used it to bypass the 2-hour long line at the Empire State Building. I’ve used it to get better seating at restaurants. Shameless? Of course. But hey, being Alaskan used to be surrounded in a certain mystique, so why not use it?

Those days are over, at least for the time being. Bring up being from Alaska to someone not from here and 90% of the time, the first thing out of their mouth will be, “What do you think of Sarah Palin?” That will likely be followed by a rant, depending on the person’s leanings, and soon enough, the conversation will be over. No more mystique, no more wonder, no more fun questions like “Do you live in an igloo?”

Of all the bad things Sarah Palin has done to the people of Alaska, this is by far the worst: embarrassment.  The fanciful image of Alaskans has given way to an image that paints us as airheaded, gun-totin’, vengeful losers. The rest of the world wonders how in the world a person like her was actually voted to the top leadership position in the state. Sure, their judgment is based largely on what they’ve seen of her since John McCain announced her selection as his running mate, but I think that’s fair. That’s the person running our state right now and she’s not the same person she was when she was elected. Those who voted for her should be quite upset because if she can be so easily transformed from the open, assertive governor she was to the completely opaque, puppet of McCain she is now, what’s to stop her from becoming something worse just to further her career?

In any case, I just want being Alaskan to be “cool” again. It might take a while to repair the damage, but assuming Palin doesn’t make it into office, maybe it will recover fairly quickly. Then we can get back to saying things like, “Hey, I know there’s a 2 hour wait, but I’m from Alaska…”