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In a speech on Monday in Golden, Colorado, Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin noted that, along with energy policy and government reform, “special needs” would be one of the issues she would focus on, should she and Senator John McCain be elected. The September 17th, Education Week notes that Gov. Palin’s reference to “special needs” is followed by mention of curing “our most dreaded diseases.” Here’s what she said:
I’ve told Senator McCain a few things I’ve learned as a senator and as a mom. Ever since I took the chief executive’s job up north, I’ve pushed for more funding for students with special needs. It’s touched my heart for years, especially about 13 years ago with the beautiful addition to our extended family of a nephew with autism. And now, my family and I, we have added special perspective with the birth of our beautiful baby boy, Trig, just four months ago. …
We can join so many American families that know that some of life’s greatest joys sometimes come with some unique challenges. We’re going to make sure that government is on their side too. And part of that effort is going to involve making sure that our most dreadful diseases have our most effective efforts.
Too often, government gets in the way when innovators take on cancer or Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s to find a cure…our administration will lead the effort to find new treatments and new cures. That’s going to be a commitment in our administration.
Education Week notes that “funding for children with severe disabilities who need specialized care has indeed gone up” during Palin’s tenure as Governor of Alaska—but these are children who “make up a relatively small part of the special education population, however.” Palin did not mention the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) and instead focused on talking about curing “our most dreadful diseases.” Indeed, as Education Week notes,
The state [of Alaska] does not provide funding to school districts specifically for special education students with less severe needs, but does give an additional block grant to districts that they can use at their own discretion for special education, gifted education, education of English language learners, and vocational education……
Also, the disability advocates I’ve had the opportunity to interview seem to care less about government obstruction, and more about just having enough funding to explore the topics they consider important. One research avenue, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, is something Palin opposes, as do many social conservatives and President Bush. McCain, however, says he does support federal funding of such efforts. (Skip to question #8)
Curing diseases and living with a disability—a lifelong on, such as autism—-are two different things.
And we only know Gov. Palin’s views somewhat on one.
More discussion of Palin’s views on disability (not on “dreadful diseases”), and also on Obama’s, can be found here.
1239 days ago
[...] blog over at Change.org has a post about the Top 10 Moments of Feminism in 2008. The selection of Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, as Senator John McCain’s running mate sparked (I guess that’s an [...]
1309 days ago
[...] insurance, and social services for people with disabilities. I’ve written previously about Palin on curing diseases and not on disability. Tags: ada, asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, barack obama, disabilities [...]
Kristina,
Thank you for posting the Longmore article–’really informative summing up.
Here’s historian Paul Longmore on Palin on special needs children and Obama’s plan for all people with disabilities.
1329 days ago
[...] Palin on Curing “Dreadful Diseases,” Not on Disability Following up on Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin saying that, should Sen John McCain and her be elected, she will focus on “special needs.” [...]
Ah, Sergio Alcantara (aka Air Purifiers), you surely show the mark of a true conservative in your comments. Throw in a little racism, religion and delusion and you have the perfect right winger. Good Job.
By the way, the guy runs several scam like businesses out of his home in Las Vegas. http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/361/ripoff0361518.htm
Palin is 100% correct. Historically, the FDA, CDC, etc work for the large corporations and industries that stand to lose billions if a natural cure for x, y, or z disease is found. They shut down anyone with a natural cure. Here are a few such examples for your consideration: http://tinyurl.com/4bbdwa
Having established that gospel truth, let’s move on to the next point of contention. Before Palin was added to the Repubican ticket, I was for that guy with the white trash mother (back in her day, any white woman who slept with a black man out of wedlock was considered white trash, sorry, calling it how I see it) and drunkard father who lost his legs in a drunk driving accident and later died in another drunk driving accident. Yeah, that guy. I was voting for him simply because he was at least a threat to the “bankers” who own and call the shots in the world we live in. McCain is obviously big business’ lackey. Palin however is a true Christian and conservative and she will influence McCain or he will get tossed out in 4 years, simple as that. McCain will win, no question, now that he has Palin. More of the same, more debt, more so called “islamofacist attacks (really Isreal trying to get us to hate Muslims, flase flag ops)”, more debt, more wars, and probably a depression or worsening or the financial situation. However, at least we’ll have a true conservative in the white house and you never know, that blow hard phoney McCain might do the right thing and keel over at any moment making a hockey mom the president. Wouldn’t that be something!
@Christina Samuels, Really have to thank you for your post — have been trying to find out as much as I might about her positions on these issues, regardless (if that’s possible) of her being a (quite new, I suppose) special needs mothers. Thanks again—–
From one “Christina” to another — thank you for referring to my blog entry here. I cover special education for Education Week, and at one point I thought this election was going to be a quiet one for my coverage area. No longer! I’m very interested to read the discussions that Palin’s entry into the race have prompted.
Also, I’ve corrected the typo where I said Palin said she spoke to McCain as a “senator” as well as a Mom — that was my mistake and she said “governor.” I was concentrating so hard on whether she was saying “dreaded” diseases (a more common phrase) vs. “dreadful” diseases (less common) that I missed the obvious stuff.
As the father of a 4-year-old with autism, I created http://www.specialneeds08.blogspot.com to examine the candidates’ positions. The Republicans are big on rhetoric and short on details. Palin’s comments in Colorado undercore her lack of understanding and McCain-Palin’s lack of any specific ideas or plans.
Forgive me if I’m taking a sexist tone here, but doesn’t advocacy start with learning what your childs “special needs” are and will be by spending time with them? As a mom to a daughter with autism, I can’t fathom going back to work after 3 days of giving birth to your infant with special needs. I would have never allowed my husband to that- he took 3 weeks off to bond with his babies.
I also absolutely doubt she will ever be able to relate to our struggles with school systems, insurance companies, etc. That child will have the best help available to him. But personally, I don’t think any “support” piece is a substitute for a parent who has no time for their son. Her judgement for her son’s best interests is questionable, I don’t want her making decisions for mine.
I mainly wich to point out that she is walking in her own shoes, not “ours” as a previous commenter claimed. I am not so sure if the majority of special needs parents will ever be able to claim per diem to stay at their own house, or live on a governor’s salary.
I submit her shoes are much more like ruby slippers compared to the average bear.
I like some of what she has to say. Her positive attitude describing her child. And yet, I have no interest in voting for her. I never know what to believe either. The things I read are all saying different things about what she has done to help special needs in her community.
Hey! I do know how to make a link!
Let’s remember that it’s McCain, not Palin, at the head of the ticket, and that historically, vice-presidents don’t have very much influence over what an administration does (I wrote “historically” because there’s been a lot of discussion about how much influence Cheney created for himself).
Even Palin herself just about admitted this a few months ago when she asked, (sorry, don’t have the verbatim quote) ‘What does the vice-president do, anyhow?’
I’m also sorry I don’t know how to make a proper link, but here is McCain’s statment on autism:
http://www.johnmccain.com/content/?guid=24dc9c37-e739-4aa3-8a88-ebae650a2f11
If you read it, you’ll see that it is very short and addresses children with autism only.
Here is Obama’s. It is much longer and mentions life-long services:
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/AutismSpectrumDisorders.pdf
I have to agree with Regan, it remains to be seen how much money the next administration will have for ANY social services, health or education programs. But if you’re looking at what the candidates think would be the ideal for us autism families, and you’re honest, I don’t think there’s any debate about which candidate has a clue.
I’m with CS in wondering what specifics she was talking about. I listened to Governor Palin’s whole speech and, really, the comments on energy policy seemed much more fluid and detailed than those on special needs or even medical innovation.
(In some ways this all seems theoretical depending on what happens with the current market upheaval and Federal bailouts, takeovers and bridge loans, in addition to the ongoing costs of the Iraq occupation. I realize that those campaigning can’t necessarily be held directly responsible, but I’m a little impatient with sound bites and platitudes at the moment.)
@sherry, am not one to discount personal experience and positive views about difference—-there’s more specific information about her “track record” regarding funding for special needs here:
http://www.autismvox.com/palin-and-the-disability-community/
Am curious to see if she might address issues like IDEA, concerns about housing and employment for special needs/disabled individuals.
While we are quoting her lets make sure to note that she uses the words “blessing” “beautiful” and “joy” when she speaks of her son and nephew. I have been touched by her positive attitude. It is something that seems very rare these days.
I know that I will be in the minority here but I will try to make a point. I believe it is a HUGE stretch to say that Gov Palin intends to compare curing diseases to living with a disablitity. She is talking about two separate issues at the same time. When she talks about education funding for special needs children there is a population out there that are disabled because of a “dreadfull disease”. Research does need to be funded to cure cancer and other diseases. There are a lot of families that would also like to find a cause and cure for autism. You don’t need to consider it to be a disease but it is a neurological disorder that needs serious attention in research funding and it education. If we could find out more about the cause then it would be easier to treat. I read on factcheck.org that she did increase special ed funding. I believe it has tripled Alaska and this is supposedly and unbiased report. At the very least, please pay attention to who is making some of these claims before we all jump to conculsions. I find it hard to believe that the mother of a baby with Down Syndrome who is also the aunt of an autistic child becoming VP would be bad for any of us. I do believe she will be an advocate for us. I personally have more faith in someone who is walking in my shoes than someone looking in from the outside.
I think I actually dug around from earlier posts on this blog and found she hadn’t actually increased the special needs funding at all. And all this talk of give the local schools the money and let them do what they want with it is good for as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go as far as her claim that she increased funding for a specific problem by increasing funding in general. I like local administration but you can’t claim to be supporting local administration, abandon all responsibility for where the money got used, and then claim credit for increasing funding special interest stuff because you made sure the money was there if the locals wanted to use it all at once. If she wanted to say I think special needs funding levels should be a local county issue she should have just stopped there instead of trying to call the foot in her mouth a flower.