Keller train rumbles down Palin tracks

Frontiersman Editorial Board

In a time when most political campaigns are run on the premise -- and promise -- of change, and when campaign winners spend their early days in office tipping over carts, tearing up the track laid by their predecessors and pointing their own engine in a "new direction," Wasilla has recently experienced a much calmer transition in the Mayor's office.

Mayor Dianne Keller of Wasilla ran with a unique message in 2002. It was the old, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" message. And it apparently resonated with Wasilla voters. Keller was part of a city council that had worked with former Mayor Sarah Palin to push forward an agenda of small, efficient and responsive government. It was a concept Keller has said she agreed with, and she felt the voters agreed with it, too. So she ran on it.

Many candidates seem fearful that if they simply run on a "stay-the-course" message, they'll be perceived as weak or unimaginative. They are afraid that they'll be perceived as running on their predecessor's coattails. Keller didn't worry about that. She knew she shared a lot of Palin's views and goals, and she believed the city was on the right course to realize those goals. It takes a certain amount of courage and self-confidence to campaign that way in our flavor-of-the-month culture.

It's not that Keller isn't her own person. She is. She understands that her role in the process of building a multi-use center in Wasilla will be different than Palin's was. It's simply that Keller saw a city government that she thought was running well and heading in the right direction. She hasn't changed the people working in that government. She hasn't replaced Palin people with Keller people. She saw people who were working efficiently toward her goals, and she kept them in place. It's a rare move in modern politics, and the result has been a seamless transition.

Keller's approach won't work in every campaign. Sometimes things really are broken, and a new direction is in order. The problem is, voters often make the change so often that there is nothing like continuity in government. We often take three steps in one direction, get nervous and then take three steps back. As a result, we never get into too much trouble, but we end up with a well-worn path that covers a small patch of ground where nobody feels particularly content. Dianne Keller is heading in Sarah Palin's direction, but her footsteps will cover ground a little further down the path.