Going Rogue: An American Life (27 page)

Going Rogue

establishment’s support, but I think you should run governot.

Our state is ready for change.”

Rick wasn’t an establishment Republican in

derogatory

sense of the term, but he was definitely influential in the mainstream parry. And he was the only person like that-a quasiinsider, who reached out and encouraged me to run. I considered Rick’s encouragement to run

governor as one of those signposts on the right road. Some of his colleagues would think it was a horrible idea, he acknowledged. That intrigued me, of course. As Murkowski had, Rick warned how tough the job would be on my family. He knew what he was talking about: as a young senator, he’d had three daughters with his first wife, then divorced, remarried, and had three sons.

In spite of the challenges, he said, I should seriously consider running. “You’re different. Alaska needs something different.” I respected Rick and took what he said to heart. On the other hand, I took what another caller that summer,

McLeod,

said with a grain of salt.

In 1997, after losing an eighteen-month battle seeking a permit to sell falafel on street corners,

the Gadfly, as many called

her, ran for m,ayor of Anchorage. City officials had spiked Anfalafel stand idea, deeming homemade chickpea sandwiches a potential health hazard, and she was ticked. But she lost the mayor’s race. In 2002, she ran a losing campaign for the state house with yard signs that featured an ill-advised logo of giant red lips and the slogan “Kiss off special interests.” She lost again two years later.

who had once listed her occupation as “whistleblower” on a candidate survey, was a too-frequent caller to my home. My kids dreaded hearing her voice, but the only way I could get anything done during her long, one-sided conversations was to put her

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10J

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SARAH

PALIN

on the speakerphone while 1’d go on cooking dinner and washing dishes. She ranted in the backgtound, dumping piles of compliments, complaints, and cutses on my head. She implored me to run for office and wrote glowing letters to the editor about me, but her motivation in communicating with me wasn’t so much “pro-Palin” as “anti-everyone else.” In those days, het tatget was Murkowski, and she thought I needed to bring him down. Another day during that season of soul-searching, my telephone rang again.

“You
don’t know me,” said a deep, confident voice on the other end of the line. “But cotruption in Juneau is disgusting, and we gotta clean it up or Alaska will get left behind,” The caller inttoduced himself as John Reeves, and he went on to say that he lived in Faitbanks, had five kids, and worried that they wouldn’t have the opportunities he’d had to build and produce and succeed. John said he was ready for Alaska to get on the right track with responsible development of our natural resources, and he was sick and tired of backdoor deals struck between politicians and special interests, especially the oil companies. If I was game to take on entrenched interests in Juneau, back me.
“You
should think

about running for governor,” he said.

a Democrat, and 1’d

support you,”

John and I talked a lot about our kids’ future and the threats to their opportunities and freedom. Corruption was spreading in Juneau, and the state’s future was in trouble. He knew I wanted to tackle it.

A lot of sincere, hardworking people called to give me their two cents’ worth that summer. They were basically saying the same thing: the growth of government bureaucracy was out of control; the oil companies were sitting on their leases instead of drilling, thus withholding jobs and development opportunities
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