What is Dairygate? It has to do with Palin but I have no other details?

Question

This women is drama queen. I missed a few hours of new & Y/A & have come back in the middle of these stories.

Answer 1

The Board of Agriculture in Alaska voted to shut down its failing state-run dairy called Matanuska Maid, but Palin wanted it to stay open so she fired all the Board members and replaced them with people who would keep it open.  This kind of cuts into her reformer, fiscally-conservative, "maverick" persona.

Answer 2

Matanuska Maid was a failing, state-run dairy that had lost about $600,000 over two years when the state Creamery Board finally decided to shut it down in the spring of 2007.

Sarah Palin felt so strongly that Matanuska Maid should continue operating that she fired the entire state Board of Agriculture and Conservation, which appoints the Creamery Board, just to install new members who would reverse the Creamery Board’s decision and keep Matanuska Maid alive.

Sustaining a money-losing state-run business certainly doesn’t sound like fiscal responsibility.  But neither does increasing the price the hemorrhaging enterprise pays for milk, which is precisely what the Creamery Board did, making it even more likely Matanuska Maid would not be able to continue as a viable entity.

In June of 2007, Matanuska Maid eked out a small profit. In July, however, it lost almost  $300,000.  So, after first going to extraordinary lengths to keep Matanuska Maid alive, then imposing the equivalent of a death sentence (raising the dairy’s already high expenses),  Sarah Palin came to the same decision the fired Creamery Board had several months before – Matanuska Maid had to be shut down.