Sarah Does Stanislaus

The visit by Sarah Palin to California State University Stanislaus in Turlock, California came off last night amid pomp and protest. Stretch limousines both black and white, SUVs, and sports cars ran the gauntlet through protestors and police barricades to deposit the formally clad ticket holders at a place where golf carts could then carry the guests to the long-awaited event on the campus of this public university.

I was in the Central Valley and couldn’t resist, and so traveled to this town of 70,000 to observe the goings on. I had hoped to talk to those who paid $500 per ticket and ask them what the attraction was. I am honestly curious.

But I couldn’t get within a half mile of these people. A and A Temporary Fencing had been contracted to erect a barrier around the periphery of CSU Stanislaus. All I could do was peer through the metal diamonds. Police were everywhere. Who paid for all of this? The LA Times reports unnamed sources saying that Palin was paid $75,000 plus expenses for her visit. It also reports that the CSU Stanislaus Foundation, a private off-shoot of the school, which invited Palin, says it “grossed more than $450,000 in cash and in-kind donations, for a net cash total of $200,000.”

I am innumerate so welcome challenges to my math, but the tickets cost $500 and 375 were reportedly sold, for a total of $187,500. Palin’s fee was $75,000 plus expenses. And then there was the meal. And the bill from A & A Temporary Fencing. And they had better have paid the Turlock police and CSU security guards for their time. So what, exactly, was left? The president of CSU Stanislaus said that a third of this left-over money will be used for scholarships and the rest will fund university programs. But exactly how much is that after all this security is deducted? At what price was a public university placed off limits to the public, from 10 a.m to 11:30 p.m., on Friday June 25, 2010?

This is the Palin visit where intrepid students dumpster dove to find remnants of a contract that demanded plenty of water and bendable straws. According to the LA Times, Palin derisively said during her 40-minute speech: “"Glad I got some of those contractual demands out of the way.” First of all, that joke was worth about $1,875 if it’s true that she was paid $75,000 (which works out to $1,875 per minute). Second, she twisted without denying her contract, making a joke of the students who had outted her while blithely skipping over the main point, which is her obscene demands. At the end of the day, what is most disturbing is the image of that chain-link fence around a public university. How did this happen? How is this okay?