Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (55 page)

Mansour then asked herself why. In seeking an answer, she effectively escalated the issue by suggesting a massive conspiracy that went all the way to the Oval Office: “I don't know the answer, but my suspicion is that everything changed for her the moment she dared to challenge Barack Obama.”

Step two was to feed this story to the
Anchorage Daily News
's Sean Cockerham. He dissected the outrage in his
Alaska Politics Blog
by repeating the
Conservatives4Palin
dis-invitation claim while including an embarrassing account of the high school principal's nonexplanation.

Meg Stapleton issued a statement on Sarah's behalf, reprinted by Cockerham, that made it clear the governor was being a mature adult about all this, despite the unfair treatment: “At the end of the day, the Governor is excited to sit back and enjoy this graduation with no pressure on the stage and in the spotlight. She will relish the moment with the family.”

As was frequently the case, the public face masked reality. Sarah let us know she was far from “excited to sit back.”

The moral of this story is that no matter how insignificant, there is always an opportunity to escalate an offense via unsubstantiated innuendo, play victim, generate sympathy, and attack an enemy.

The media, we believed, held us to a higher standard, something we once swore we'd welcome. Now this seemed unfair. In an April example of this burden, Ivy wrote:

By now, we were far too busy pointing fingers to be concerned about our own standards, higher or otherwise.

Even after Sarah resigned, self-inflicted agony continued. Helping to fill the twenty rings of distraction, even old foes joined our circus. When KTUU reporter Rhonda McBride conducted a television interview with ex–Palin high school friend and fired cabinet member John Bitney, we needed to spend time correcting the record. As was her blunt style in addressing problems, Sarah wrote:
“Why'd Rhonda say Bitney was my campaign manager? And bitney sits there in the interview w/her lying about his role even in the debate when I interrupted murkowski and binkley and chided them—bitney says he told me to do that. He's such a flippin lying jerk.”

I added my two cents:
“Cattle-prod Bitney wasn't even IN the campaign until after the primary is my recollection. He wasn't there for that debate, I was the only person there.”

Sarah responded:
“He's a freak . . . Damnit. He's a liar. How can
we call him on this. He's doing this to position himself/Harris for gov's run . . . Rhonda needs to be told she was buffaloed.”

Five of us went to work, devising an expose of Bitney. We decided to contact multiple KTUU reporters, not just Rhonda McBride. Meg called. I called. Ivy went out and cyber-blasted the story. Others phoned their contacts. We mobilized, an army of righteous workers acting like seven-year-olds.

Sarah reminded us:
“He was lobbying for nurses assn in Juneau, ivy reminds me (she was w lyda at the time) . . . Bitney wasn't even around.”

For five or six hours, we scrambled. That night, at half past eight, Sarah had another thought:
“I hope bitney claimed that title
[
of campaign manager
]
with Rhonda so she can open her bias eyes to the truth—that he's a liar. I'm happy to email her to tell her Kris
[
Perry
]
was manager, as ktuu reported how many times?”

Kris added:
“Bottom line, he came on late. Did a crappy ass job. Didn't even attend debates . . . And wasn't campaign mgr. And as I said before—slimy, lying, prick.”

Sarah confirmed that assessment:
“Or in the words of the wise sage Kris: slimy lying prick.”

In retrospect, all of these issues seemed trivial and unworthy of our efforts. Sadly, in the trenches with people who believed otherwise, I failed to see it that way. We felt bombarded from all sides by missiles, without realizing they were no more than spit wads. Eventually the accumulation of overlapping tail-chases began to wear us all down.

The end was near.

35
 

You're Never Rich Enough

B
y early May 2009 Sarah's poll numbers in Alaska mirrored the amount of time she was now spending on state business: both were down dramatically. When Sarah saw results from a Hays Research poll that would be reported the next day, she alerted us,
“Ugly headlines coming tomorrow re: my astounding drop in poll #s. To go from 80+ percent to 50 percent is dramatic. Things aren't going well.”

We responded as expected, with Ivy suggesting we should commission a more friendly pollster to do a second poll—much as Sarah had commissioned a second Troopergate report to defuse the
Branchflower Report
. Meg Stapleton recommended in an email we explain that the numbers weren't bad
“when you literally have the Obama administration and the . . .
[
Democratic National Committee
]
targeting her!”
I wrote Sarah,
“You are the best thing to ever hit our state, but I realize this doesn't help us tomorrow.”

Strangely, Sarah was disappointed, but not half as angry as I might have expected. She wrote back, beginning with a note of humility.

Uncharacteristically, Sarah suddenly had more interest in being above the fray, wishing to downplay the horrible numbers. She made sure we understood that
“the defense/explanation of poorpoll#s shouldn't be attributed to me unless the comments are very humble, almost apologetic for letting down Alaskans. Don't . . . attribute “it's not my fault” whiny—sounds to me.”

Where was this suddenly rational reaction coming from, and why did we adopt a policy of not fanning the flames? Normally, this would be a weeklong battle to set the record straight. For some reason, this died with an hour's discussion and a handful of emails.

The explanation for ignoring disastrous polling news undoubtedly had something to do with an event we couldn't have foreseen.

Opportunity had guided Sarah's handling of Troopergate ahead of her selection as vice presidential nominee.

Opportunity now guided Sarah's subdued handling of declining popularity: when negotiating a multimillion-dollar book deal, even Sarah realized that drawing attention to dissatisfied Alaskans wasn't a great move. Besides, outside of her home state, people and conservative commentators still loved her. And they had way more purchasing and marketing power anyway.