This silly pitch somehow - can't imagine how, ha, ha - keeps popping up in Sarah Palin stories, as if to suggest Target and big box stores are progress. I lived with those stores for so many years and would never consider them progress. Cheaper prices, perhaps, but at a cost. They all have a reputation for negotiating cut throat deals with towns and counties, receiving government handouts for the honor of their presence as they drive out small businesses who were never afforded the same corporate welfare. And oh, to think of the beauty they bring to communities around the world.
Of course everyone loves lower prices but I still don't see why such a trivial turn of events that was no doubt promoted by the store itself (and accommodated by local politicians everywhere) is listed on her professional CV. Does ushering in a Target significantly transform a small suburb into somewhere important? Does this somehow make a person appear qualified to step in on day one to be President of the United States?
Her supporters say she helped Wasilla evolve from a ridiculed backwater to fast-growing suburb. The population of about 5,000 during her tenure as mayor has grown to nearly 10,000 now, and the city is filling with big box stores, including a Target that is scheduled to open on Oct. 12, one of three opening statewide that day in the chain’s Alaska debut.
But her critics say too much growth too quickly has made a mess of what not long ago was homesteaded farmland.
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