Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (19 page)

By late September, the friction and problems only worsened as Sarah complained about us working our butts off while noting:
“Sean's pretty absent from the work that's needed to succeed here . . . we need to
put him on something and see him produce. is he out of debt yet? :) are you guys tired of hearing me ask that yet? :)”

Ultimately, the dilemma we had with Sean Parnell came full circle and once again hit upon the omnipresent full-time evil-doer, Randy Ruedrich. Somehow Sarah believed that the GOP head would use her lieutenant governor to destroy her.

Fortunately for Parnell, Sarah eventually concluded that he'd make a fine second in command. Especially as he, once the general election put us in office, enthusiastically joined in the ever-growing quest to counteract any critical word uttered against our leader. When it came to, as Sarah would say, quoting George W. Bush, “you're with us or against us,” he was cloyingly with us.

Sean, if he reads this, might take comfort in the knowledge that Sarah was a serial complainer when it came to those who toiled for her. Even in the case of our well-respected public relations firm of Walsh and Sheppard, she moaned that they produced subpar work and advice, despite dramatically cutting their fees. In July Sarah commented,
“It's odd that Walsh/Sheppard doesn't even seem to have any advice . . . they ask us what to do about media . . . I need them to tell me how to do this right.”

Two months later, the spats between Sarah and Pat Walsh reached
a boiling point. In a terse message from Kris Perry, we learned,
“Walsh & Sheppard sent a letter of resignation this evening. They wish Sarah well and continue to personally support her in her bid for Governor.”

Sarah immediately fired off,
“I want WS back.”
Less than a week later, we received this, written by Pat Walsh:

Sarah often stepped on toes, but when she wanted to sweet-talk someone back home, she did so like no one else. From Pat's response, whatever Sarah said was effective, and Walsh-Sheppard was back, working once again at a steep discount. In private, however, Sarah still held marginal respect for the firm. When informed that WS planned to engage in not only media buys but also press and creative tasks, Sarah responded:

Sarah's rocky dealings with Sean Parnell, Dan Fagan, Rick Rydell, Walsh and Sheppard, Cathy Fredericks, Kelly Goode, Scott Hey-worth, Randy Ruedrich, and, later, John McCain and his campaign staff, aren't by themselves seismic events, and are likely similar to the in-fighting and petty complaining that goes on in other business and
political environments. But in the distance of time, what became enlightening was the accumulation of Sarah's fractured relationships. With Sarah, personal infatuation often morphed into dissatisfaction for reasons that didn't always appear logical. If that led to potentially losing an asset, she often shifted gears, turned on the charm, and recouped that asset, in one form or another. Witnessing this process on a regular basis, most of us couldn't help but wonder—as Cathy Fredericks had stated directly—what Sarah was saying behind
our
backs. Given how hard I worked and how loyal as I remained, I told myself that surely none of that hidden commentary was going on about me. Oddly enough, knowing that Sarah had a highly critical side to her personality made the rare compliment all the more important. In a perverse way, what might seem a character fault motivated us to work harder and search for ways to curry favor.

Despite dealing with limited finances, crazy interpersonal dynamics, and helter-skelter organization, we continued to successfully distribute Sarah's brand throughout the state. In the polls, we were thumping Tony Knowles no matter what he (or we) did or said. An October 6 Rasmussen poll, between the two leading candidates, put Sarah at 47 percent and Knowles at 40 percent, with 13 percent undecided. According to the same poll, the electorate ignored reality and viewed Sarah in a political light that ideally suited our purposes. Fifty-one percent of the voters saw Sarah Palin as a moderate, while only 45 percent saw Knowles the same way. Also tilting our way, 44 percent labeled Knowles a liberal, while only 37 percent regarded Sarah as a conservative. With such perceptions, we were winning the battle for the important political middle. All told, the numbers and demographics bode well for our prospects.

Unfortunately, our most shameful episodes—where we went from blurring the ethical line to ignoring it altogether—likely resulted from the marriage of Sarah's intensity and insecurity. Whatever the reasons, we began to quit believing that it was better to lose a race than to win unethically.

We officially became as bad as the others. Maybe worse.

13
 

Our Double Agent

F
or a time, we fretted that Andrew Halcro, a clever independent with an acerbic tongue and wit, might prove to be a speed bump on our ride to Juneau. A friend of the campaign warned in an email,
“Halcro could be a spoiler. He is seen as some one that republicans would vote for if he was on the R ticket and is seen as taking more votes from Sarah than Tony.”

A second political voice wrote:
“my biggest concern . . . is the impact Halcro will have on the general election ballot. Twice Knowles has won election by a fractured conservative base. Halcro must be dealt with.”
This person went on to ask, as a means to eliminate the threat,
“Would
[
Halcro
]
be a good Lt. Gov??”
For Sarah, the answer to this query was a definite no. The man was incapable of being charmed or impressed by her common sense, making him unsuitably incorrigible.

At a youthful forty-two, Halcro had an affection for sweater vests and blue blazers that draped over his slim frame. When he spoke to a camera, he gazed unflinchingly through oval wire-rims framed against a thick head of JFK-like hair. His critics saw him as an image-conscious opportunist capable of going from political wonk to rumor-mongering diva in a single sound bite. He proved to be smart, often funny, unpredictable, and routinely irreverent. As a former Republican elected to the Alaska House of Representatives in 1998 and again
in 2000, he had government experience but not enough to be old guard. More troubling, he had his own mavericky reputation. After criticizing Republican legislators for taking too many junkets with taxpayer money, he lost his chairmanship of the House Transportation Committee. While Sarah's run-ins with the state GOP placed her on the party's fringes, Halcro managed to become a complete outcast.

With a personal fortune from family control over the Alaskan Avis car rental franchise, he had funds to pour into a campaign that might yet influence the outcome. Halcro would never be governor, but if he stole enough votes, he might cut into our margin of victory or, in the worst possible scenario, split the vote and usher in yet another Knowles administration.

Fortunately for us, Halcro had a consultant on his payroll who didn't mind lending Sarah free advice that proved an asset in dealing with both Halcro and Knowles.

Willis Lyford, a longtime political strategist and media consultant who had worked on Lisa Murkowski's legislative campaigns, met Sarah Palin when she ran for lieutenant governor in 2002. In an interview with Kenneth Vogel on the Politico website in 2008, Lyford recalled their first meeting in Wasilla: “She came out from behind her desk and was wearing a navy blue turtleneck and these leather boots that were up over her knees, like thigh high, and I thought immediately to myself,
This is not a look you often see on a Republican
. She was sharp, personable, a quick study, capable, committed—the whole package. And my assessment of her right from the get-go was all she needed was visibility and exposure.”

While the Palin campaign for lieutenant governor could not afford to hire Lyford, he did suggest correctly that scheduling face-to-face meetings with the electorate would play to Sarah's strengths.

With that bit of mutual history, it wasn't unusual that he should contact the Palin campaign for governor a few years later were it not for one small complication: Willis Lyford was financially married to Andrew Halcro. Press reports during the race variously described him
as spokesman and media consultant to Halcro for Governor. At the time, I actually thought he was Halcro's campaign manager.

According to Alaska Public Offices Commission records on campaign expenses, on February 2, 2006, Lyford Strategies received from Andrew Halcro as “paid accrual,” $14,822.50. During the coming months, various payments ranging from $10,000 to more than $59,000 ran through Lyford's hands. In all, his firm handled over $165,000 in advertising expenses for Halcro. Lyford's efforts in creating the “Think Halcro” television ads that ran during the election season went on to win a silver medal at the 2007 Pollie Awards. (The Pollies are highly prestigious accolades voted on by the nonpartisan organization the American Association of Political Consultants.)