Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (15 page)
Read Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin Online
Authors: Frank Bailey
I felt on top of the world, believing that I was a piece of history that would be recognized as great. This was like becoming a father for the first time, and feeling overjoyed after counting your newborn's ten fingers and ten toes and realizing that your healthy new baby is headed toward a blessed future. The feeling of gratitude to God for the gift of lifeâin this case, political lifeâfilled me and every one of the hundreds of manic supporters who'd slaved for months and who now leaked euphoria from every pore.
It wouldn't hit me until much later, but even as we cheered, laughed, and reminisced with joy, there seemed to be an emotional cloud hovering over our candidateâa hardening forming in her personality. Her happy face was fleeting, present only when in front of cameras. When left on her own, in the hallways outside the main rooms, she more paced than walked, her head heavy, her eyes without that magic sparkle. Maybe Sarah realized that we'd won the easier battle and that the next phase would be more challenging, with real mudslinging taking the place of dust balls. On her night of nights, did she regret the journey? The future? What was going through her mind? Did she really possess Reagan's steely spine, or did she harbor doubts about her political vertebrae?
Answers wouldn't take long in coming.
Out of the primary, we continued with message and name placement. For the general election campaign, we nearly doubled the number of yard signs to 12,500 statewide, while distributing 21,000 campaign buttons, 23,000 bumper stickers, and nearly 1,000 of the larger four-by-eight-foot signs suitable for mounting on buildings, in vacant lots, and along Alaska's much-traveled Rail Belt, which stretches nearly 500 miles from Seward in the south to Fairbanks in the north while passing through Anchorage.
We did all this while exploring additional avenues meant to address the biggest weaknessâaside from moneyâhaunting the campaign: Sarah's lack of substantial governing experience and a perception that
she spoke only in what independent candidate Halcro termed “glittering generalities.” At the Captain Cook on primary night,
Anchorage Daily News
reporter Tom Kizzia had told me candidly that glossing over missing or inaccurate facts would no longer work for her. I understood that there was a need for ramping up the substance of her message, but it never occurred to me that there was a problem beyond minor naiveté, which naturally went with being the “anticandidate candidate.” Our state had plenty of experience with sophisticated political hacks. Sarah would read, learn, and do what she always did: laying waste to those who underestimated her.
Sarah herself recognized the risks inherent in falling into the stereotype of empty-headed beauty queen and sought to look the part of a wise, serious executive. One simple device was the ever-present Kawasaki glasses.
“I wonder why Sarah wears those glasses,” said Kerm Ketchum, a man who supported, loved, and felt almost like family to Sarah. Kerm's daughter was Sarah's high school friend and college roommate, and he was a close confidant of Sarah's parents, Chuck and Sally. On this particular day in late 2007, our paths crossed at Anchorage International Airport as Sarah and I were heading to Juneau.
“Seems strange to me she'd bother with 'em,” he continued.
As Sarah mingled with a small group of people about ten yards from where we stood, I focused on the candidate's face. With hair trussed up in the signature Palin beehive, the effect was to raise her petite frame, perhaps an attempt to match her skyscraping personality.
“I'm gonna ask Sarah why she still wears glasses; Sally says her eyesight was all fixed with Lasik surgery.”
Kerm, armed with a revelation from Sarah's mother, padded toward Sarah, his enthusiasm reminding me of my son asking how that model boat got into such a tiny bottle. He caught up to Sarah just as she was boarding the plane. As they spoke, Sarah's face twisted and all traces of a smile disappeared. After a rapid exchange, Kerm, head bowed, stumbling as much as walking, returned to where I stood.
“What's wrong?” I asked. “She looks upset. Whatâ”
“She don't wanna talk about that,” he said. Kerm wouldn't discuss what Sarah said to him.
In another effort to address her perceived lack of gravitas, Sarah once suggested when searching for a photo to go on a campaign mailer,
“how about including the pic where i'm speaking from the podium down in juneau (it's posted on the web site) because it looks like i may actually be speaking governorish.”
Sarah had firm ideas on how to manage her appearance, and for the most part did so successfully.
For those digging deeper, however, no cosmetic cover-up would silence their concerns. On the conservative Voice of the Times editorial page of the
Anchorage Daily News
, the editor, Paul Jenkins, blasted her by writing,
A few weeks back, I pointed out the glaringly obvious; that Sarah Palin is the lightweight in the Republican gubernatorial field. I should have added she is a trifle paranoid and maybe not the brightest bulb in the box.
Frankly, with the notable exception of John Lindauer [the 1998 Republican Party candidate for governor], who melted down like a candle when asked about his fountain of campaign money, I've never seen a politician come unhinged so quickly as Palin when asked a few straightforward questions.
The editorial grew even more pointed:
And how would somebody with just six years' experience as Wasilla mayorâand none at the state levelâbe able to manage an enterprise as complicated, complex and dynamic as Alaska? Or, if she surrounds herself with qualified people to make up for her lack of experience at the state level, who really will be running the state . . . Some guy she met at a party? Who?
These attacks, while painful, also energized supporters. Jenkins tended to write his criticisms ahead of the weekends. We called these “Jenkins Fridays.” On the days immediately after his editorials, our phones rang nonstop with support and an uptick in financial contributions. Other critics elicited the same reaction. After a particularly
nasty Dan Fagan attack, a man waved his checkbook in Fagan's face and declared, “I'm gonna give money to that poor gal runnin' for office.”
While the public mostly tolerated vague answers, media and opponents were less charitable. The chorus asking for detailed proposals grew, and Sarah longed to build her intellectual credibility. While the letters to the editor were helpful, they did not go far enough. We could write dozens of notes expressing outrage at Jenkins-like attacks (while soliciting plenty of folks who'd be happy to lend their name and claim authorship), but constant questions about her intelligence and experience demanded something substantive. So we began methodically exploring the potential of the op-ed. These short columns, another free source of advertising and name recognition, might define Sarah's policy credentials while laying to rest the label of political lightweight.
Unfortunately, this did not play to Sarah's strengths. Even while blindly supporting her, many of us understood that she was not particularly well versed in policy matters or the minutiae of governing a state. While we didn't much care about her lack of hands-on knowledge, others did. In addition, Sarah's ability to woo a crowd with plainspeak did not transfer to the written word. At times, her communications were colossally incoherent and cut-and-paste repetitive. She sent one particularly long and bitter email to a then distinguished list of allies. Her rambling thoughts in this small portion of a much larger email included statements and attacks on familiar foe Randy Ruedrich as well as calls for blessings and expressions that there were powerful forces wishing her ill will:
Alaskans deserve better. . . . It's a bunch of b.s. going on in this state. . . . My God . . . this stuff makes my stomach turn. . . .
How much more evidence do we need . . . our vice-chair's comments yesterday that our campaign will implode so we need Randy to salvage it . . . on and on and on . . . the evidence is glaring: we have to do our part to clean up the mess. Someone has to do it. Many Alaskans are putting their faith in our campaign to do it. I am willing to do it. I think I've held back too much and that's
why some folks are chiming in, requesting that I PLEASE don't get sucked in to the politically correctness of the day . . . ?! They're looking for reform!
The essay was emblematic of a style of writing and speaking that critics later labeled “Sarah word salad” and I internally referred to as “hodge-podge-kitchen-sink-soup.” But another noteworthy thing about this particular email is that one recipient, Mike Londonâa senior vice president of Eagle Electronicâemailed back,
“Sarah, Did you mean to send this to me?”
While I never saw her response, Sarah did e-mail her team:
“Ummmm . . . oh no. Somehow he was cc'd in to this very confidential email. Does anyone know Mike?”
This type of faux pas was not unusual. Sarah occasionally sent messages blasting a team member, unintentionally copying the victim. Glen Biegel, a dedicated volunteer, speechwriter, and radio host, was the target of one such blistering email. When Sarah inadvertently copied him, he reacted with shock and hurt feelings.
Claiming to Glen that his being copied was intentional, so that he might know what she was thinking in an up-front manner, Sarah wrote,
“Glen, I sent this to you and others with all due respect.”
But as she immediately emailed me,
“YikesâI didn't know I was sending it to him! Thot that thing was just forwarded to me . . . DANGGGIIITTT.”
Clearly, prose, editing, and attention to detail weren't Sarah's strong suits. Even with direction, she would submit paragraphs that challenged everybody's ability to comprehend. In an oil tax position piece, she wrote in less than inspiring prose:
Alaskans deserve an atmosphere of trust in government. But broken promises, averted eyes from ethical lapses, booted-out conscientious state employees, and things like the Governor's jet are the much ballyhooed issues that illustrate the disconnect between established politicians and the rest of us. Hopefully though, as we consider the most important economic issues facing Alaska in decades, may these aforementioned reminders of things amiss share ink so we can debate additional issues that
are also of utmost importance. As obstinate as the jet purchase is, oil taxes and long-term gasline deals are such a focus now.
Issues advisor Paul Fuhs (also an oil industry lobbyist), when reviewing another of Sarah's position pieces, wrote to me:
“Frank, I tried to keep this within the spirit of what sarah has written but to fill in some details that shows she knows what she is talking about”
âthe implication being that either Sarah was not proficient at supplying details or didn't actually know what she was talking about.
The question thus became: how does the campaign produce opinions for publication and debate that instill enthusiasm without exposing our candidate's policy inexperience, weak writing skill, or alienating a constituency? Sarah's early attempt to cobble together an editorial from a series of talking points did not go well and illustrated the dilemma. In submitting a 675-word op-ed to the
Anchorage Daily News
entitled “Nonsensical Gas Agreement,” Sarah demonstrated a prodigious ability to lard the piece with hyperbole and inaccuracy after suggesting she would put the complex issues
“in plain English, which I'm good at.”
Editor Larry Persily's reply, after reading her draft, was blunt in its dismissal:
Sarah,
Thanks for the op-ed column, but it will need some changes before we can publish it. As I have told all the candidates, we are not going to let anyone (incumbents or challengers) get by with easy political speeches on the page, especially on oil and gas issues.
The public deserves specifics, not just promises. Soâand nothing personal in any of thisâI've added my comments where appropriate to give you an idea of what would need to be added or explained before we could publish the piece.
Picking up with Persily's comments in an email exchange on Sarah's fourth point, we read:
Sarah wrote:
Fourth, the contract doesn't ensure gas for instate use.
Persily commented:
How do you propose to ensure in-state gas? Everyone is quick to promise in-state gas, and to attack the draft contract for being deficient in this area, but I'm not going to allow anyone to get by with more of the same promises. If you're going to raise the pledge of in-state gas, you will need to explain how you plan to fulfill that pledge.
Further down, Sarah wrote:
As Cook Inlet supplies diminish, the concept of importing natural gas while ours goes to Canada is abhorrent.
Persily replied:
through Canada, not to Canada.
Sarah:
Fifth, under this contract, if gas prices dropped to certain levels, we'd actually pay oil companies for the privilege of producing our gas while they reaped profits.
Persily:
Please explain. Yes, the state would have to pay the processing costs for its share of the gas, and the cost of removing and disposing of impurities, but we're talking around 50 cents per mcf. Do you expect gas prices to drop that low? And if gas prices were that low, and we lost money, how would the companies “reap profits”?
Sarah:
We assume more cost and risk than the oil companies do, including contributing our land and 7/8 of our gas to make the project happen. All told, our concessions could nearly equal the cost of the entire project, yet we'd only own 20% of it.
Persily:
How is any of this true? We would take 20% of the cost risk under the contract vs. 80% for the companies. How does that translate into the state taking on more cost and risk than the companies? And we didn't “contribute” our land, we leased it to the companies for a substantial upfront payment and royalty terms. And, if the project is $20 billion, what state “concessions” would nearly equal $20 billion?
Sarah:
Seventh, Administrators refuse to disclose details of negotiations with viable alternatives like TransCanada, MidAmerican, and the Alaska Gasline Port Authority.
Persily:
Not entirely true. The state eventually released most of the negotiation documents from its talks with MidAmerican. And there were no negotiations under the Stranded Gas Development Act with the Alaska Gasline Port Authority, just informal talks outside the Stranded Gas Act. This could easily be fixed by changing the allegation to a statement about the state has been less than fully honest about our projects, or something like that.
Sarah:
Eighth, the deal was the Administration was forced to propose sweeping legislation to amend the Stranded Gas Act to retroactively legalize their deal.
Persily:
Not quite “retroactively legalize their deal,” since the Legislature has not approved the deal. It would be more accurate to say “to allow the deal to proceed under the law,” or “to make the law match the deal.”
Sarah:
Ironically, other viable alternatives projects were hypocritically rejected as âillegal under the Act.'
Persily:
What alternatives were called “illegal?” I'm not aware of any. The state did determine that the Alaska Gasline Port Authority does not qualify under the Stranded Gas Development Act, but not qualifying for a negotiated fiscal contract is not the same as “illegal.”
Sarah:
Like other Alaskans, I crave a profitable gas line agreement. But it must pass Constitutional muster and be derived through a competitive process where all viable proposals are fairly and openly considered. My preferred alternative will first provide gas for energizing Alaska's homes and businesses, employing Alaskans, and reducing rural energy costs.
Persily:
Again, how do you propose to ensure gas for Alaskans and how do you propose to guarantee Alaska hire? Local-hire requirements are unconstitutional, so if you're going to imply you have a way around that, you need to say how. And, as for ensuring gas for Alaskans, do you propose reserving a portion of the state's royalty gas and selling it to Alaskans at below-market prices? Whatever the answer is, you need to say what you have in mind.
