Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (22 page)
Read Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin Online
Authors: Frank Bailey
“Sarah Palin. As mayor she moved her city forward. She cut property taxes, eliminated personal property taxes, and repealed the business inventory tax. That will move Alaska forward.”
Suddenly the music turned dark and dramatic, and the film cut to Tony Knowles walking through interior offices, but with the film in reverse so that he appeared to be walking backward.
“Tony Knowles? We've been there before. The highest unemployment in the nation, and even a push for an income tax. Why would we ever go back?”
Upbeat music again. There was Sarah, marching forward, looking seriously confident and determined. “Tell Sarah Palin to support ideas to move Alaska forward.”
My chin dropped. Now Sarah was striding out the glass door of the Hotel Captain Cook and turning left, up the street toward the spot where I'd watched her stop and go back for another take, over and over and over. Same clothes, same day, same event. Was the cameraman
from the RGA? I sat frozen. Something was terribly wrong, and the pizza I'd just eaten rose up my throat. Sarah had written in no uncertain terms,
“Our campaign can have NO participation in any 3rd party campaign efforts.”
So what happened from the time of that statement just two months before to this commercial?
Our pledge had been to abandon the so-called entitlement culture personified by the Murkowski father-daughter team. Sarah had complained about Ruedrich withholding GOP funds; did she feel because of that she was now entitled to RGA dollars? There seemed to be no other explanation. She had, I believed, broken the law. No question she endured multiple takes of that nutty march at the behest of a cameraman. Not only that, but she did so in the pursuit of a negative ad ripping our opponent. We'd promised a hundred, hundred times to run a positive campaign, regardless of the political consequences. How could this be? We were the
good guys
, remember? If this wasn't dirty politics as usual, what was?
The realization that Sarah Palin and our campaign were not all that we had set out to be made my head ache. In that moment, black and white yielded to a sad shade of gray; there was no absolute good or bad left, at least not in politics. Paraphrasing the poet Robert Frost, I once believed that we'd chosen the road less traveled, but suddenly this seemed like a superhighway heading toward the same old selfish interests.
In our offices the next day, nobody so much as mentioned the RGA commercial and its obvious coordination with the Palin campaign. Finally, Ivy Frye asked if I'd seen it, and I mentioned the backward footage of Tony Knowles. “I guess I'm a little disappointed,” I said. Ivy cocked her head. Stumbling over the explanation, I added, “Just seems it's kind of a negative ad. We said we weren't ever going to go negative.”
Ivy scoffed at that notion of negativity, suggesting that this kind of truth telling was always fair game. “Besides,” she added, “this wasn't our ad.”
Even though I hoped that our collective silence would help the winds of intrigue die down, I was sorely disappointed. But almost immediately, the political foul weather escalated into a campaign hurricane. Knowles's handlers immediately issued a press release accusing Sarah Palin of hypocrisy:
September 22, 2006
Knowles' Communications Director Patty Ginsburg pointed out that just two days ago in Ketchikan, Palin again claimed that hers is a down-home, grassroots, low-budget campaign. Speaking to the Southeast Conference, addressing regional leaders, Palin said:
“Well, my campaign, as it's progressing you've probably noticed it's been a real positive campaign, real grassroots. Not, um, highly financed but literally grassroots with folks all over the state of Alaska understanding that it is time for positive change not more politics as usual.”
“Sarah Palin has wrapped herself in a flag of grassroots independence, claiming over and over that she doesn't need lots of money or political players,” Ginsburg said. “Well, she must have changed her tune since she's now benefiting from a very expensive, very big TV buy courtesy of the Republican Governors Association, or RGA. . ..
One of the leading contributors to RGA has been Capitol Campaign Strategies, Jack Abramoff's group.
Mentioning Jack Abramoff in the same breath as Sarah Palin became a declaration of war. A federal investigation into former GOP lobbyist Abramoff and his partner, Michael Scanlon, had already scandalized Washington and brought down a host of those close to them. Abramoff's name, along with an association with big industry money, gave Sarah an emotional aneurism. As often happened when Team Palin's weaknesses had been spotlighted, the official response was denial followed by even more spectacular accusations against the other side. Sarah wasted no time punching back, delivering a blistering
statement through spokesman Curtis Smith to Kyle Hopkins at the
Anchorage Daily News
:
That's rich coming from Tony's camp. Not only has Tony benefited from outside ads in the past, we're quite sure the Democratic Governors Association is about to do the same thing.
Plus, if they had done their homework, they would know that ads like these are not at all coordinated through the campaignâthat would be illegal.
Maybe Tony can continue to run an illegally high number of ads on local TV in hopes of drowning out Sarah's message. (Check out KTUU records Kyle; I was just told Tony ran too many spots in Prime Time).
If Tony is so worried about affiliations, why did he appoint Bill Allen of VECO to head up his transition team in 1994? Not only is his company under investigation by the FBI, But isn't he the leader of the “good old boy” network Tony's camp is chirping about?
As for the Frugally Paid For adsâthose are Sarah's. We created those with funds given to her by hard working Alaskans.
Did Tony waste everyone's time with his dog and pony show about ethics? This latest accusation is not only beyond ridiculous, it flies in the face of the ethics plan Tony read from his notes only a couple of weeks ago.
Bill Allen, the man that Curtis Smith claimed in his press release headed Knowles's 1994 transition team, was currently at the center of a dollars-for-votes scandal that eventually landed a number of Alaskan lawmakers behind bars. In bringing up Allen's nameâwhich in Alaska carried even more of a stigma than the name Jack Abramoff (Allen eventually went to federal prison for bribery and tax evasion)âwe'd adopted the Sarah Palin tactic of taking both eyes for an eye. But there were a few problems. Most of our accusations were not entirely accurate. For one thing, Bill Allen had
not
headed up the Knowles transition team. Kyle Hopkins shot off a quick post on his paper's political blog the next day, bringing attention to the inaccuracy.
Posted: September 23, 2006â3:15 pm
What role did Veco executive Bill Allen play on Knowles' transition team in 1994?
The reference to it, via a Curtis Smith quote, in today's story could leave you with the impression that Allen was in charge of the transition team.
Not so, the Knowles campaign said today, providing a list of all the transition team leaders.
Dave Rose and Fran Ulmer were running the team, while Allen is listed as “economic & development team leader”âone of more than 24 team leaders and chairpersons. Janie Leask is also listed as a leader of the economic and development team.
I should have precisely
described Allen's role in the story
.
But, as the saying goes, “The toothpaste was already out of the tube,” and there was no getting it back in. Most readers, to our great benefit, would never see the
Daily News
correction and hold the false association in their minds.
While this bout of mudslinging raged on, Curtis Smith received another directive from Sarah:
From: sarah
Date: Sunday, September 24, 2006 6:44 pm
Curtisâthere needs to be a strong explanation that the outside GOP Governor's ads are NOT our ads. That we're as frugal and hard core grassroots as ever . . . that outside group doesn't give us money or time or people to work on the campaign . . . they want their GOP Gov's group to grow by one so they're running their ads up here. Those are NOT our ads.
Sarah wanted to frame the controversy solely about who paid for the ads. Over the next several days, the accusation war escalated as the Democratic Party filed an official complaint. According to the September 26, 2006, edition of the
Anchorage Daily News
:
The Alaska Democratic Party says it plans to file an APOC (Alaska Public Offices Commission) complaint against the Republican Governors Association and against Palin. The Democrats say the RGA ads about Palin are not “issues” ads at all but can only be seen as a call for people to vote for her. They also say it appears the Palin campaign and the RGA coordinated on the ad, which isn't allowed. The RGA says the complaint is a political stunt, that the Democrats know the ad is legal, and that there was no coordination involved.
The Dems correctly emphasized what we most wanted to bury: namely, our illegal coordination with the RGA. While my palpitating heart and twitching face said, “Guilty,” Sarah convincingly conveyed a “How dare you question my honesty?!?” counterattack. She pled innocent on the charges in a widely distributed email that also dealt the ever-popular victim card:
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 9:53pm
From: sarah
someone needs to tell me if there is any illegality here that I am missing . . . are they spending more than they are allowed? did anyone coordinate the message with RGA?
surely there is someone who knows APOC rules well enough to tell us if RGA did something wrong here. and I don't mind telling anyone that the local RGA leadership machine is NOT supporting us.
More than anything, I wanted to discover if I was somehow wrong in my belief that we'd broken campaign law and then lied. Was this an irregularity that Sarah simply missed or misunderstood? Unfortunately, the answer to that question was,
not a chance
. Had Sarah, as her husband once shockingly said, “become no better” than those she was trying to replace? Was everything we had worked and sacrificed for in danger of coming to an abrupt end?
Technically
, perhaps we didn't coordinate with the Republican Governors Association to
be at the locations shown in the TV commercial, but once there, we absolutely and positively coordinated with the RGA in filming it. No matter how our side spun the words, in this instance we proved ourselves to be penniless morally.
The campaign's official denial to APOC came from attorney Wayne Anthony Ross on October 12:
Your letter (of 5 October) summarizes the allegations made in the complaint on page 1 of your letter under the heading “Allegations.” There are five allegations. Four of them appear to require a response from the RGA and only one appears to be an allegation against the Palin Campaign itself. The one allegation directed against the Palin Campaign appears to be the third allegation, to wit, “that Palin for Governor solicited and accepted a prohibited contribution by coordinating with the RGA,” an allegation which the Palin Campaign denies.
The RGA went into spin mode as well, brazenly and unabashedly turning the attack around and accusing our competition of duplicity. As the
Daily News
reported: “The RGA's lawyer, Charlie Spies, called the Democrats' complaint dishonest because he says they know the ad is legal. I think it's a political stunt to divert attention from the fact that Knowles campaign is flailing and hasn't gotten any national support.”
While keenly aware of the truth, like everyone else I would not volunteer word one; I would bite my tongue until it bled if need be. At the very moment I needed to stiffen my spine and call out my boss for this ethical lapse, as she had done against her own party, I remained cowardly silent. The media, with its short attention span, would soon look for fresh political red meat. While Sarah is not wired to let sleeping dogs lie, we'd do our best to suppress her desire to counterattack.
Unfortunately, just as it seemed we might succeed in fading to black on the RGA scandal, we faced a second crisis when an unknown came out of nowhere, guaranteeing that our cover-up would not go smoothly.
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