Anti-Palin rally calls for AK Attorney General removal

By Kyle Hopkins / Anchorage Daily News

A protest slamming Gov. Sarah Palin's handling of the state's so-called Troopergate investigation -- and calling for the attorney general to lose his job -- drew more than 1,000 people to the Delaney Park Strip in Anchorage on Saturday.

Protesters chanted "recall Palin!" as organizers told the crowd to push state legislators to keep after their investigation into the governor's firing of her top cop.

An investigator hired by the lawmakers is scheduled to present his report on Oct. 10.

"This report needs to be released. Not just for us ... it needs to be released for all those people in the Lower 48 who are going to make a decision on Nov. 4," Democratic blogger Linda Kellen Biegel told hundreds of protesters gathered on the Park Strip grass.

The McCain-Palin campaign dismissed the rally as nothing more than a partisan strike from Barack Obama loyalists.

The crowd lined I Street, waving signs that said "Steady on her heels, wobbly on her words" and "Dude, where's my governor?" at passing cars. They dressed as Richard Nixon, or Hillary Clinton, or as Palin herself, holding a sign that said "hold me accountable."

A group calling itself Alaskans for Truth organized the event, which at times resembled an Obama campaign rally.

Between speeches, Anchorage singer-songwriter Libby Roderick led the crowd in a chorus of "We're gonna keep on moving forward" and "Stand tall for Obama." Obama volunteers signed up supporters under a nearby tent.

"Clearly this was an Obama rally and nothing else," Palin campaign spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mailed statement. "The rally proves the point of partisanship which the Governor has been trying to remove from the investigation in an effort to get a fair and just result."

Organizer Camille Conte, a radio host on left-leaning KUDO 1080 AM, said the event was about holding Palin to her word, and the pro-Obama message wasn't supposed to be part of the rally.

"It was hard to stop that once it started, and the crowd seemed to want it," she said.