Going Rogue: An American Life (18 page)

At the time, I had no political aspirations beyond local public service. But when hard work, life, and Providence later rook me ro the governor’s mansion and the vice presidential trail, I vowed not to forget that.

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I served rhree years on rhe city council, campaigned again, and was elected to three more. Then John Stein came up for reelection. Wasilla has a “strong mayor/manager” form of government. That means the office isn’t a ceremonial position; it’s a fulltime administrative job. You’re the CEO of the city, a multimilliondollar entity. Stein’s background was in city planning. He wasn’t a born-here, raised-here, gonna-be-buried-here type of hometown guy. He was more into the technical aspects of growth, planning, and code compliance. I once heard a voter bark at Mayor Stein that he wasn’t impressed with his public administration degree.

“I can’t support a guy whose degree is in public management,” the guy hollered after a local debate. “The public does not need to be
managed!”

A key question arose that convinced me that the town needed new leadership, and it went right back to my concerns about heavy-handed government. The issue was forced annexation. Stein and some council members were fine with forcing other areas of the Mat-Su Borough to become part of the City of Wasilla. With a bigger footprint, the city would increase the size of its tax base, plus gain political power in Juneau. But they tried to sell it with rhetoric like “Government’s here to help; trust us, you need better public services.” For me, it wenr back ro people being able to think for themselves. If they wanted Wasilla’s services-and Wasilla’s property taxes-then they’d
choose
to be part of Wasilla. I supported annexation by invitation instead.

It was evident during my years on the council that the mayor and I had sharply differing ideas about the future of Wasilla and how to make that future happen. He was for more government control; I was for smaller government and more individual free•

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dom. I wanted government to appropriately provide the private sector with infrastructure tools to increase opportunities. Stein supported expanding land-use restrictions and building codes. I wanted to eliminate property taxes (since we now had the sales tax), slow down the rate of government growrh, and build roads and water and sewer systems. And I would support capital projects if the people voted for them and acknowledged that they’d be expected to fund them.

I decided to challenge the mayor in the upcoming election in order to effeer greater change than I could as a council member. The city’s chief executive position provided much more responsibility and more opportunities to see where change could be effected. Besides, as every Iditarod musher knows, if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes.

We had a two-term-limit law, but Stein had been grandfathered, so he was running for his fourth term. I ran another very grassroots campaign, mostly with the help of my girlfriends. We painted pink-and-green signs with my familiar slogan, “Positive-Iy’

Palin;’ and posted them allover town. (Pink and green because no one else ever used pink and green.) And when it was time to knock on every door in the city again, I pulled Track and Bristol in a little red wagon, and this time tored Willow in a toddler backpack. I promised new energy and an end to politicsas-usual. I raised some eyebrows by promising to cut property taxes. I also promised to take a pay cut. It would be a money-where-your-mouth-is move. If I was going to run as a budget cutter, I figured the cutting had to start with me. Plus, as a council member I had just voted against a mayoral pay raise, and it would be hypoctitical to conveniently forget that vote if I were elected mayor. Todd wasn’t enthused about the pay-cut promise. But Curtis Jt. had once shared an observation with me: “In politics, you’te either eating well or sleeping well.” I wanted to sleep well.

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I also wanted to speed things up in out little town, to keep us growing and prospeting by embracing laissez-faire principles and promoting Wasilla as a pro-free-enterprise kind of town. Duting the campaign, the chamber of commerce sponsored a debate at the Mat-Su Resort, a rustic post-and-beam restaurant that ovetlooks Wasilla Lake. I squared off with a number of challengers, including Stein. After the debate, a fellow who was part of our local network of well-meaning good 01’ boys walked up to me.

“You know, you’ll do fine in the campaign,” he said. “But you’re not going to win because you have three strikes against you.” I thought,
Okay, I know what he’s going to say:
Strike one: At thirty-two, I was too young. I’d be the youngest mayor in Wasilla’s history.

Strike two: I couldn’t win because I was a woman. I would be the first woman elected under the strong mayor form of govern
ment.
And strike three: I knew he’d tell me I didn’t have enough
experience.

I looked at him and waited.

“The three strikes against you,” he said, “are Track, Bristol, and Willow.”

My kids are
strikes?

Oh man, the Mama Bear in me rose up then. For one thing, Stein had
four
kids. The mayor before that had had a bunch of kids. The only difference was that they had wives. After that, of course, I was more fired up than ever. All the more reason to get out there, work hard, win, and start shaking things up.

When the votes were tallied on that October election day, our. victory was seen as a huge upset of the political apple cart. I won by a handy margin, so I knew the voters were mandating
no more

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SARAH

PALIN

politicsas-usual,
The day aftet I

elected; I put in my time in

Track’s first-grade classroom-I had previously committed to volunteering that day-and then went down to City Hall, I wasn’t sure how the transition of power would work, so I just showed up and wanted to know, well, who’s going to show me where the light switches are, and let’s get this show on the road, But no one jumped out of their swivel chaits to say, “Welcome! Here’s what you’ll do when you take over.”
It
was a pretty cold reception in the mayor’s office, but it was understandable: the mayor’s secretary was still the same woman whose husband I’d defeated in the council campaign four years befote, When I was finally sworn in a couple of weeks later, I walked into my first staff meeting and sawall of the department heads sitting around a long table, Among them were the city plannet, the public works director, plus the police chief and the town librarian, who it was rumored were good friends. I knew that most of those folks, along with some council members like Nick, had campaigned vigorously against me, And they’d had every right to do so. But the campaign was over now, and it was time to get to work on the changes that the voters had just mandated. They sat with their arms crossed, stating at me, Some of them had been in government about as long as I’d been alive. Theit collective
stare transmitted a single message: going to tell
us
what

to do?”

I attempted to tum them into allies. “Thank you all for coming,” I began. “I know you guys weren’t really rooting for me, bur I’m anxious to work togethet. Are you ready to go, team?” Yeah, right,

I didn’t have in mind to replace them, except fat the museum director. Our city had only been incorpotated for twenty-two years, so I knew we didn’t need a fulltime cabinet member to

“curate” such artifacts as license plates from the town founder’s

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Going Rogue

tractor-not when our roads still needed paving. So I eliminated the position. As for the rest, I figured theit experience was valuable. When it became obvious that the “team” wasn’t gelling and Stein’s players continued to campaign informally against the new administration, I did what many incoming executives do and requested letters of resignation to keep on file in the event that I decided to replace these political appointees. Only two of them complied-so I knew those two would be team players. The rest refused.

Nick, who had originally recruited me to serve on the council, confronted me personally to announce that he intended to make my life difficult. He launched a recall effort. Within days, he and his cronies began holding public meetings around town, drafting a petition that said I was too inexperienced to do the job. When I cut my own pay, as 1’d promised to do, they accused me of trying to shoehorn myself into a lower tax bracket.

Hmmm,
I thought,
wish I’d thought ofthat.
Meanwhile, my efforts to rally a team composed of someone else’s players weren’t working. The police chief was their quarterback. He was rarely seen out of uniform, except every afternoon when he put on his shorts and headed to the local aerobics class that I used to attend with my girlfriends. He was now a regular there. He liked to stir the pot and was known for it. I felt our city government was growing too fast and was getting in the way ofthe ptivate sector’s progress. I asked the department heads to prioritize their operations and show me how they could accomplish an acrossthe-board cut so that 1’d have more budgetary options. The chief’s response was an outright “Nope. I won’t do it.” He claimed he wouldn’t be doing his job if he cut the budget.

“You won’t even give it the 01’ college try?”! asked. His answer: “No. My department can’t be cut.”

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