Alaska style

I was intrigued by this picture of the governor at the AGIA signing in Carhartts and work boots. I won't pretend to be able to read the governor's mind but no doubt the idea was to send the message about being a regular, Carhartt-wearing, sleeves-rolled-up, Alaskan, ready to start working on a gas pipeline, which, to give her credit, she more or less is.

What made me pause, though, was just how new those Carhartts look. It's like she picked them up on the way to the bill-signing. As anyone who lives in rural Alaska knows, new Carhartts are a dead give-away of "newbie" status. In fact, I've heard of people who drive over their new Carhartts with a truck before wearing them to take some of that shine away and break them in.

So the message I take from the governor's dress in this picture is either a) she's never done any hard work in her life but is ready to start now (unlikely, as she is a mother of four); b) the governor wants to look like a "regular" Alaskan but because she isn't (she's the governor after all), she doesn't have the clothes to do so; or c) the governor has her own unique sense of style. People clearly like Sarah as she is - why bother playing dress up to convince us she's something else?