Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (51 page)

In the midst of all of this, an ethics complaint filed by Linda Kellen Biegel, who blogs under the name Celtic Diva, became an issue that WAR promptly embroiled himself in. Biegel maintained in her petition that Palin used her position and state resources for personal financial interests by being “a walking billboard for Arctic Cat, a private for-profit company and family business sponsor.” In this instance, attending the Iron Dog race in her official capacity as governor, Sarah appeared on camera wearing Arctic Cat winter clothing that prominently displayed its logo. Some perceived this as poor judgment because Arctic Cat was a major sponsor of Todd Palin during the Iron Dog snowmobile race. Prior to these hearings, Sarah and WAR had spoken extensively about the complaint. Ross assembled a team with “some common sense . . . to review this whole problem and to resolve it.” He then added, “I wonder how state government can work at all when a governor has to pay attention to such Bravo Sierra”—
Bravo Sierra
being military slang for BS.

So, when the topic came up at his confirmation hearing, WAR was ready when Republican representative Jay Ramras asked about the governor's provocatively wearing Arctic Cat gear at the finish line of the race. Ross flippantly replied, “She
was
provocative—she looked very good in them, didn't she?”

Ramras was not amused. “To a lot of Alaskans, she looked like a walking billboard . . . The governor looks good every day, and she doesn't need to adorn herself with merchandise that promotes a company . . . where her husband enjoys an endorsement from.” Interesting comment from a sitting lawmaker who annually peppered TV with ads paid for by his hotel chain promoting himself conveniently during election season.

If this were the only distraction, it would be enough to send Sarah into a funk. But Sarah, and by extension all of us in her administration, had other crises to hold hands with WAR's confirmation. When on April 3, KTVA (Anchorage channel 11) ran a tease banner ahead of its news programming—“Palin's Sister Arrested”—it sent us into a typical to-hell-with-anything-else frenzy. Spokesperson Meg Stapleton shot KTVA an email explaining,
“It was the Governor's husband's half-sister and not her sister.”
She demanded an immediate correction and
warned,
“You could have a lawsuit on your hands if one of the Governor's sisters sees that tease.”

Sarah immediately sent out the disclaimer
“Absolute bullshit grabbing headline.”
Meg phoned our media relations person, Sharon Leighow, while Sarah ordered us to figure out a way to correct the mistake. Meg, not satisfied with her email, phoned the station, only to discover that Sharon had beaten her to that punch. We recorded each of the next few news shows in an attempt to document if and when the story about the arrest changed. Eventually the story became clearer. Todd Palin's half sister was arrested after police claimed she broke into a Wasilla home for the second time in a week to steal money.

The station itself gave us no comfort. Sarah wrote,
“they stand by their ‘story' and lectured
[
us
]
about ‘if you'd have LISTENED you'd hear we didn't mention the governor.' Then ktva did a story tonight reporting ‘Levi Johnston said he and Bristol practice safe sex, most of the time.' When has a teen's sex life EVER been reported on in the news? Never have I heard a celebrity, a criminal, anyone's sex life reported as a hard news story. This is insane.”

From Todd's sister back to Levi Johnston and his comments to the media, this became a distraction that lingered for days.

In the midst of all this, in an effort to fire up her newly blossoming Lower 48 conservative base, Sarah indicated she planned on rejecting 31 percent of Alaska's estimated $930 million portion of the federal stimulus money designed to aid states with economic recovery in March. We hadn't focused on state government hardly a minute since her return as governor, and now our administration was returning nearly $300 million, of which $170 million was earmarked for programs to help economically disadvantaged and special-needs students. The total represented nearly $450 for every man, woman, and child in the state. She explained, “I can't attest to every fund that's being offered the state in the stimulus package will be used to create jobs and stimulate the economy.” Not surprisingly, this was not widely popular in a state with economic difficulties, far-flung school districts with
no road access, and one of the highest high school dropout rates in the nation. Critics argued she was sacrificing Alaskan interests while positioning for national prestige and a role in the burgeoning Tea Party movement that was flexing its muscles as the anti-government-handout party. Unfortunately, Sarah was still governor of Alaska and this would become another crap-clustering decision.

Sure enough, a month later Sarah ended up accepting $900 million of the monies while vetoing only $28.6 million tied to what she said were the adoption of building codes. The governor, according to Sharon Leighow, changed her mind after the public weighed in during legislative hearings. Mostly she changed her mind after taking a public relations beating. Even so, critics continued to hammer away as she became one of the few governors in the country to reject any federal stimulus funds. Sarah grew both worried and puzzled.
“We have hundreds of millions of $ in
[
our budget
]
for ‘energy relief ' and conservation and weatherization . . . and none of those are tied to obama's universal building codes . . . It's a $10 billion dollar budget to serve 670,000 people, and they're going to freak about $28m (with expensive strings attached?!).”

During this critical juncture, KTUU ran a poll asking, Do you agree with Governor Palin's decision to reject federal stimulus energy funds? All of us invested time, energy, and emotion into linking our computers and utilizing our software into generating votes in favor. We watched the results on a minute-by-minute basis.

Ivy reported:
“We're up 75% to 25%.”

Sarah responded,
“Oh thank God!”

Ivy's next update was less positive:
“In 10 minutes it went from 71 to 60 to 47. I think it was hijacked. Still working on it though.”

The poll was hijacked? If so, the thieves must've had better vote-rigging software than us.

I wrote:
“Can't let 'em win.”

Sarah responded:
“Argh!!!”

Ivy tried to buck us up:
“Ugh. I know. It aint over yet though! Were gaining on 'em.”

We furiously sent in more and more votes. I cautioned,
“When this is done plz everyone delete these mssgs re: poll.”
I later forgot my own warning.

When the poll closed, KTUU posted the results:

We won what was definitely an unscientific poll (with me alone devoting three hours of what should have been family time to affecting the results). While it didn't change reality, Sarah felt massive relief. Irrationally, we all did.

In August—despite the bogus poll indicating public support—the legislature voted 45 to 14 to override Sarah's veto of the $28.6 million.

While my friend Wayne Anthony Ross was still broiling as the main course, the side dish distractions mounted. Sarah, with a national platform, felt a need to poke her opinions into any and all controversies with an eye toward winning favor with a national conservative base. When Miss California, Carrie Prejean, suggested that she'd lost the 2009 Miss USA title because she gave an answer during the contest stating she believed marriage was exclusive to a man and woman, Sarah became involved, motivated per usual by criticism. In an email bemoaning the fact that Fox News slammed her for “not defending” Prejean, Sarah said:

Minutes later, we learned that the governor and Miss California had a connection that went through Sarah's biographer-to-be (in a book deal announced only the day before):
“I did speak to
[
Carrie
]
on the phone and we voiced our support for each other. She goes to lynn Vincent's church, small world, that's how we hooked up last week.”

Sarah and staff debated a strategy to rebut the critique. The initial suggestion was for Sarah to call reporters and document her efforts on Prejean's behalf, but as Sarah wrote,
“If I call those reporters then I'm on the hook to answer all their other questions they want.”
Long ago Sarah learned that answering unfriendly reporters' questions was a bad idea. Instead she suggested the story be leaked:

Sarah asked Ivy to get on this ASAP and google Carrie's dad's comments to further the leak and add it to more supportive statements showing Carrie's strength for standing up for her beliefs.

Meg Stapleton, pulling over to the side of the freeway, attacked on
a second front:
“I am driving from Wasilla and pulling over to write a statement. We will put it on Facebook and let it go viral with its 600k friends.”

In addition, a press release on Sarah's behalf stated in part, “The liberal onslaught of malicious attacks against Carrie Prejean for expressing her opinion is despicable. . . . Carrie and I spoke soon after the attacks started; I can relate as a liberal target myself.”

The question we failed to ask was, What does this possibly have to do with being governor of Alaska? While it had nothing to do with Alaska, it had plenty to do with publicity. Fox News made this an ongoing story, giving it wall-to-wall coverage. Sean Hannity in particular latched on with both hands. With Sarah suddenly an outspoken supporter, he had gorgeous Prejean on one arm and sparkling Governor Palin on the other. He appeared a happy man. The
Washington Post
wrote that “with this action, Sarah Palin has re-appeared on the national stage.”

If Sarah had been off the national stage, she'd never make that mistake again. Alaska was officially too small a pond for this whale of a celebrity.

As for emotional merry-go-rounds, Sarah still had Wayne Anthony Ross, the mounting problem of the vacant senate seat, Carrie Prejean publicity, her half-sister-in-law controversy, and, in an event she'd turn into yet another manufactured crisis, a mess I'd come to call Tourist-gate. Without so much as a single layer of thin skin remaining on any of us, the Rag Tags were spinning out of control. All we had to do now was take notice.

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