Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (5 page)

While I don't wear Christianity on my sleeve, I know in my core that God's teachings are best for this world, me, my family, and all of our relationships. Having attended Capernwray Bible College in England for a time and been an active member of the evangelical ChangePoint church in Anchorage, Sarah's “God bless” sign-off didn't seem strange to me at all. As for Sarah, the connection between her faith and politics seemed profound; in my mind, God had chosen her, and this was His will.

Even after this second email, I heard nothing back. It wasn't until I approached Sarah at her first official fund-raising event at the Reagan Building in Wasilla in November 2005 that matters moved forward.

Present that day were several individuals I would grow close to in the coming years, including prominent longtime local attorney Wayne Anthony Ross, better known as WAR; Sarah's husband, Todd; Don Benson, a volunteer from nearby Palmer; and Kris and Clark Perry, friends of Sarah's from Wasilla.

At that fund-raiser, in front of notables and nobodies, Sarah inspired us, talking about how, “Man was created to work.” With the Murkowski administration, she said, this wasn't happening. I took her words about being created to work personally and applied it to a verse that my mother instilled in me as a preteen that says, “Work heartily as unto the Lord.”

At this time, the depressed price of oil was damaging Alaska's economy, and people were scraping to get by. Pouncing on that theme, Sarah pointed out that Murkowski's Petroleum Profits Tax amounted to an oil company giveaway. The people who actually owned the resource in the ground—by state constitution, Alaskan citizens—were being shafted. Rather than receiving potential increased revenue from the resource itself, they received a piddling tax while business enjoyed the windfall. Her words convinced me anew that our current governor was taking the state in the wrong direction. All the heads in the room nodded like bobbleheads. When she uttered the phrase “time for change,” the room broke out in spontaneous applause. For the first time in all the years I'd observed politicians, someone was uttering unvarnished truth.

In the midst of the excitement, I made my way in her direction to
meet face-to-face. What, I wondered, could a simple man, a political novice, a kid raised in a small town on a remote island, possibly do to aid a future governor? All I knew was that I had driven almost an hour because I wanted to make a difference. Maybe I could offer ten words of encouragement. Maybe I'd hand off a check for fifty dollars. Whatever she'd accept from me was on the table.

“Sarah. Hi. I'm Frank Bailey. We exchanged emails . . .” In a voice that surely betrayed my nerves, I explained I hadn't heard back from anyone about volunteering.

“Frank, I am sorry nobody contacted you.” She sounded annoyed with her current unpaid staff.

“I can paint. Clean floors and toilets. Wash windows.” What I really wanted to say was that I'd help flush and scrub away Alaska's massive political corruption.

While I did not know then the level at which I'd be working for the campaign, my naively sincere offer struck the right chord. With little more than this brief introduction, Sarah invited me inside the campaign. As I've learned since, only in Alaska is it possible to be invisible one day and in the middle of a political movement the next. After all, I'm just an amateur musician and former airline manager of average height, balding, with a hefty build. I have a wife, whom I love deeply, and two wonderful children, along with a German shepherd named Shiloh and a cat named Kalsin (named after a picturesque bay in Kodiak). I have a hankering for burgers, fries, shakes, and most anything sweet and salty. We live modestly in middle-class South Anchorage, about twenty-five minutes from downtown. If Sarah were an unlikely political icon, my future intimate role—in her election, governance, and resignation—was even more so. As I made plans to turn my life inside out at the age of thirty-five and devote massive amounts of time in pursuit of landing Sarah Palin in the governor's office, I felt light-headed. What an adventure lay ahead. I walked away convinced that if my future boss applied her potential to running the state, better days lay ahead. This woman from Wasilla had a down-home charisma, a laudable work ethic, and she would
never
lose her ideals.

In hindsight, I guess I forgot the adage “Never say never.”

2
 

Rag Tags: On
Your Marks, Get Set, Go

I
n November 2005, driving my weary blue 1997 Isuzu Trooper SUV, I barreled along the Seward Highway under a white canopy of a sky that blended in with the snowcaps of Sleeping Lady Mountain and distant dormant volcanoes. I was armed with a five-gallon bucket of tools, including a paintbrush, toilet bowl cleaner, and a hammer, and there was never a man more ready to roll up plaid sleeves, get down on denim-covered knees, and do “work unto the Lord” than me. Window washer, painter, gofer deluxe, whatever it took was more than okay.

I was on my way to Palin campaign central in Anchorage. After passing an Avis car-rental dealer and an adult bookstore, I pulled up to the curb in front of the ground-floor office. White butcher paper covered the windows as if to hide whatever went on inside, casting back my reflection. Short of breath, I felt goofy and reminded myself,
Don't forget to smile, be confident; let Sarah know how grateful you are
.

A pessimist might suggest that the building's grimy exterior, cracked cement and brick, and rusted railings foreshadowed a future with crumbling dreams, but as an incurable optimist, I saw the reverse. To me, the disrepair of the headquarters, which was the former
home of the Alaska Aces minor league hockey team administration, symbolized the current sorry state of Alaskan politics. In a moment, I'd enter and meet a team of people who had the heart and soul to fix 'er up into a shining jewel. As I surveyed the chosen building for launching a governor, I decided that—modest digs aside—this location had merit. On the corner of busy West Fifth Avenue and B Street, the eventual campaign banners would attract plenty of eye contact from pedestrians and drivers. The offices were set within a building that housed the well-worn 5th Avenue Mall parking garage, the far end of which had a sky bridge leading to the trendy shopping area anchored by the Nordstrom department store. Traffic noise and busy streets were perfect for campaigns operating on a shoestring.

As I'd soon discover, we were a half lace short at that.

I yanked open the metal door, which stuck against the base plate before yielding. Water-stained overhead tiles and spotted blue carpet led to an elongated lobby with a built-in countertop for a nonexistent receptionist. Cartoons, a pinup-girl calendar, and sheets of tacked-on paper littered the walls, floors, and windows. Were it not for the optimism filling my heart, the word
dump
might have crossed my mind.

With a bathroom that self-locked and required a credit card to pick open, a large storage closet, two mini-offices, and a third office for candidate Palin, command central was a diamond in the rough. Sarah's ex-brother in law, Jack McCann, had contributed some decent desks and chairs, so we had at least a small sense of office potential.

I'd arrived at around ten o'clock and met a small group of volunteers who came and went over the next hours. I would soon learn that with the exception of me and an ex-correctional officer named Kelly Sharrow, this was a family affair.

Sarah arrived shortly after me, dressed for work in jeans and with her hair pinned back. She set down paint supplies next to her omnipresent oversized red shoulder bag.

“Frank, thank you,” she said, shaking my hand. A radiant smile, framed by chocolate colored eyes that would later charm hardened members of the media like Bill Kristol and Sean Hannity, lit up the room. Sarah asked me repeatedly about my wife, kids, and extended family. When I explained that my father had passed away two years
earlier—and was unable to mask the pain of that loss—her condolences were sincere. She asked questions and got me talking about myself. Her interest in a person she'd known for all of an hour was flattering, endearing, refreshing, and energizing all at once.

For me, it took only a minute to see beyond her physical charm to a warming heart. Though not yet a powerful political voice, Sarah was more than a former beauty queen (Miss Wasilla, 1984), she was a concerned Alaskan woman on a mission. As we spoke, there was none of that “You betcha!” folksy manner that provided so much material for political satirists, standup comics, and impressionists during the 2008 presidential campaign. It was straight-up, neighbor-to-neighbor or parishioner-to-parishioner, from-the-heart conversation. Later on, in March 2006, as I was recruiting a woman to join us as a fund-raiser, I summed up my impressions this way:

It took no more than a minute for me to appreciate her honesty and integrity; a theme she emphasized throughout the campaign. In one early bout of pique about a gift she'd received after speaking to the local Bartlett Democratic Club, she answered a question about a gift disclosure this way:
“That was just a $4.00 cup they gave me . . . I'm so dam honest I even disclosed that gift!”

While I was surprised at how few of us there were on that first day—maybe ten or twelve people in and out—we accomplished a great deal. Over seven hours, we completed most of the painting (the best touch being the gold stars of the Big Dipper on the Alaska state flag splashed across the entryway ceiling), shampooed carpets, vacuumed floors, and cleared trash.

Sarah had brought along her younger daughters, four-year-old daughter Piper and eleven-year-old Willow. During the morning, the girls quietly shuffled in and out, more interested in organizing a shopping trip across the avenue with their cousins than getting down on hands and knees to scrape gum off splintered floorboards. Sally Heath, Sarah's mother, was there as well. She spoke with a slight tremor and possessed a sweet, caring nature. Sally is not one to speak up against stronger personalities in the family, especially Sarah or her husband, Chuck Heath, but she is the spiritual rock of the family. She joined me in applying coat after coat of paint to bury the grime and muck left behind by hockey execs who apparently enjoyed the ambiance of a frat house after rush week. All the while, Sally lathered me with endearments such as “Oh, you are so wonderful to help us, Frank,” and “It's so good of you to take away time from your family to help Sarah.”

Lesson learned on that November day: Sarah Palin clearly had the gift for motivating people through emotional osmosis. I don't recall her directing anyone to task. We directed ourselves. Galvanizing people to work tirelessly on her behalf are strengths; prioritizing tasks, delegating minutiae, and big-picture focus less so. We'd confront the need for that second skill set later, when attempting to run a campaign and eventually the state. For now, all of us assumed that Sarah had more than enough fortitude to reshape Alaska.