Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (9 page)

At that time, what troubled me most was her threat to pull out of the race. Surely, I thought, this was merely a gut reaction without intent. Too much was at stake for her to scuttle the campaign over a mere insult. In that moment, Sarah's Rag Tags likely joined Sarah's Prayer Warriors (a self-named group that actually existed) in asking God to grant her peace. No less than the fate of our great state depended on that.

As for Sarah, she never did completely forget, and she certainly did not forgive. During the campaign, an accusation arose that as mayor she'd inappropriately used her office to conduct campaigning for her unsuccessful run at lieutenant governor in 2002. She likened the criticism to the attacks on her family. To a large list of supporters, she repeated the Track Palin parentage rumor and gave life to several others—some that eventually became well known on the national stump.

Defensive emails like this did more to breathe life into speculation than end it. That Sarah raised sordid issues to a previously unaware audience generated new questions. Personally, I never made the connection, nor did I read the blogs that did, nor did I follow up and wonder who Track's father was if not Todd? Or what guy on what train? But thousands (eventually millions) of others did.

Not surprisingly, few people—certainly not me—had the guts to tell Sarah to put to rest the offending commentary by simply taking the high road, ignoring critics, and thereby allowing matters to wither and die. Why not simply focus on issues instead of chatter? In July 2006, I sent her a message hinting at this advice:

In her response, Sarah intellectually understood and wrote,
“I agree. A woman can't get pissed without sounding pissy. And we don't
like pissy women. No one does.”
But in most instances, a suggestion from staff or a voter would send her into a mini-tirade. In response to a constituent's email asking for the campaign to differentiate Sarah's positions from independent gubernatorial candidate Andrew Halcro's, Sarah emailed:

Within months of my joining the campaign, these rants were becoming frequent. In April 2006, my concerns over Sarah's mental discomfort became so acute that I contacted an executive coach, writing,
“I see this as a crucial pivotal point for Sarah. I'd like to see her energized and not bogged down by the challenges we've had. I have a feeling that this . . . will be an emotional draw on her, and that concerns me. Her #1 worry is letting down her supporters.”
When I courageously floated the idea past her, she said bluntly, “That's something I do not need, Frank.” Her tone made it clear that a suggestion of personal weakness was unwelcome.

In a battle between Sarah's mind and emotions, the latter nearly always prevailed. As much as she might understand the wisdom of forgive and forget, I would soon discover it wasn't gonna happen. Not with her, and ultimately not with anyone else who survived in her campaign and administration. Eventually we repressed pacifism altogether.

6
 

Stuck in the Middle

T
odd Palin was himself an unpredictable factor in the life of the campaign. His interest and input ebbed and flowed. At times, he might be involved via emails in something as simple as organizing signs as in this message: “
We'll be ordering knew signs soon, so this is a good time to re-group and be ready for sign displacement when the knew signs arrive. I will work with the sign team to answer any further questions regarding signs
.” And on a much larger scale, Todd might direct staff, including me, to investigate commissioners, as he did on August 24, 2007:
“The FAA representative expressed to Jack great concern about Deputy Commissioner DOT/Aviation John Torgersons commitment to aviation safety. . . . If you would please give Jack Barber a call to get a better understanding of the situation and how this may affect the states relationship with FAA.”

When the state-owned Matanuska Maid Dairy was nearing bankruptcy and became a political liability for the administration in June 2007, Todd instructed me to do opposition research on Mat Maid executives Joseph Van Treeck and Terry Clark. In these instances, operating counterattack from the sidelines became one of Todd's special interests.

When Todd did appear in the campaign, between stints on the North Slope, his intercessions—often intent on managing Sarah's quixotic personality—weren't necessarily constructive.

My first encounter with a Todd crisis came only weeks into my
joining the effort. As background, Todd and I were both aware that Sarah had a desire to control all information and micromanage the tiniest of details—including being copied on every email in and out of the campaign. Expense management down to pen reorders and yard sign purchases and placement were on that nothing-is-too-small-for-me list. Todd's directives, however, conflicted with Sarah's. He'd say to me, “Sarah doesn't need to know what's going on; she needs to be shaking hands.”

No argument that what Todd said made sense. However, Sarah had—and we knew in no uncertain terms—different ideas. Her oft-repeated line was “I've run five campaigns,” blah, blah, “and I know what I'm doing and know what I need to know.” Which was a need to know
everything
.

I'd relay this to Todd, and he'd order us, in his my-way-or-the-highway voice, “No more emails to Sarah. Quit bothering her; she's getting distracted and frustrated.”

I learned to ignore many of Todd's commands the hard way. In April 2006 he phoned and asked, “How are we doing?”

“Well,” I said, “signs are flying out the door, and we're almost out.” We'd printed and delivered hundreds already and had only a handful remaining.

“So order more.”

“They take a couple or three days to make—”

“Frank. How tough is this decision to make? Just order more frigging signs. Buy 'em.”

Laughing nervously, I suggested, “Yeah, okay. I'll clear it with Sarah tomorrow, when she's in the office—”

“No!” he insisted. “Just buy 'em. She doesn't need to know; she shouldn't be bothered. Worrying about signs, thank-you notes, whatever, end it. What the hell, Frank. Sarah's heading toward a mental breakdown at this rate.”

It wasn't that Todd was wrong about the stress of overburdening Sarah. He was dead right. He knew his wife; I was still a new kid on the team, so why not? After all, Sarah had sent us countless messages about getting that “sweet sea of red” washing across Alaska as soon as possible. I uttered two words to Todd that I came to regret: “Sure thing.”

I phoned our sign guy, Ross, ordered $2,000 worth of new signs, after having proudly negotiated down their price, and assumed I'd live happily ever after.

All was well. Until four days later when Sarah entered the office and saw the signs. Her face went from bronze to a shade of red, matching the background of our newly minted Palin for Governor posters. In front of at least two other volunteers—dedicated Cathy Fredericks and high-energy Clark Perry—she asked, lacing each word with dry ice, “Where did those come from?” At that moment, with my back pressed against a door and body withering, I spoke:

“I ordered them. We had only six or seven left—”

“Why the heck did you do that?” If it didn't look silly, I'd add about five exclamation points to adequately relay the fire-breathing emotion behind her question. “I, not you, Frank, am running this campaign.”

As a man who tends to lurk in the shadows of his wife's ambition, Todd isn't one to step forward and say, “I told Frank to do that.” When the Sarah thermostat revved high, nobody expected the husband to supply supportive ice to cool things down. As for me, I had no desire to implicate Mr. Palin in anything controversial, realizing that such a move would become a lose-lose proposition for me. Nodding yes to my boss and hero (as a glass-is-half-full guy, all I had to do was convince myself that a fiery temper can be an asset in politics), I said, “Okay.” Feeling sucker punched, I swore to avoid falling into this trap again, naively believing that possible.

The entire sign exchange took only a minute or two and ended with Sarah storming out of the building. My fellow volunteers had retreated out of the office but heard the exchange (or at least Sarah's side of it). As was his nature, an animated Clark reentered once the future governor left. With a shake of his head and through a nervous laugh, he said, “Duuuude, you're in the shithouse now, aren't you? But you know how Sarah can get,” he added. “And, Frank, I'm off signs for good.”

Clark had known Sarah for years. Me? I had no idea until that moment “how Sarah can get.”

That tooth-rattling pothole on the Sarah Highway was never discussed
again, thankfully. Days later, I came to believe that Sarah regretted the outburst. Seldom one to offer apologies or acknowledge blame, she did purchase for me a desperately needed $500 smartphone—an enormous expense for our acorn-sized campaign. I took the gift as a peace offering meant to say, “Frank, you're here to stay, so don't sweat it.” Honestly, until that moment, I wondered if this Todd-induced initiative on signs was game-set-match for me. Maybe I'm reading too much into her gesture, but with Sarah, almost nothing is done sans hidden meaning, including smartphoning me.

7
 

Conflicting Message

A
round May 2006, Kerm Ketchum called me. Kerm, nearing seventy at the time and working long hours for the campaign despite his wife's terminal illness, is a kind man possessing significant intelligence and patience. Just seeing him you would agree, but we affectionately termed him our “campaign Einstein.” He would willingly drop everything and undertake any task Sarah needed done, from emailing event announcements to delivering signs. To me, he became an advisor and sounding board. A good, good man.