Going Rogue: An American Life (80 page)

Of course, FDR wasn’r president in 1929 and relevision had barely been invenred. There were no Whire House broadcasrs in rhose days. Bur Katie never pointed our rhese glaring hisrorical errors. Insread, rhe sound bire aired as a

sraremenr and was

used ro denounce Bush’s handling of rhe economy.

Going Rogue

Still, my biggest disappointment wasn’t the badgeting, or even the selective editing. It was rhat the interviews ended up wasting time. There were any number of productive things I could have been doing instead: meeting with constituents, greeting the thousands of good Americans who waited in sweltering lines and stuffy hangars ro hear ftom us, or speaking with the many good teporters who just wanted to do their jobs.

Later a public remark of Katie’s came to my attention that told me everything I needed to know-and the campaign should have known. The occasion was a National Press Club event where she spoke to fellow journalists about the patriotic atmosphere following the 9/11 attacks. “The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying ‘we’ ‘when referring to the United States and, even the ‘shock and awe’ of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and a little uncomfortable,” she said.
Unbelievable.

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I love Philadelphia, its energy, its history. It was also the city where a supporter gave me a very cool T-shitt that said, SARAHCUDA, which I wore to a rambunctious meet-and-greet the campaign organized in a Philly bar.

But a few people in the City of Brotherly Love weren’t the most loving on that trip. During a motorcade ride, my children looked out the windows of the Suburban and saw people wearing Tshirts that said lovely things like SARAH

IS A C-.

Willow was astonished. “Mom, did you see that?”

“Don’t worry about it” was all I could muster. In Philly, Mark Wallace caught up with the B Team because the VFW debate between Senator Joe Biden and me was right around the corner. Mark sequestered a small debate prep team in a

.

.

SARAH

PALIN

hotel room with the curtains drawn, blorting out the sunlight. My experience had taught me that you can work well with a diverse team, even people you don’t know, if you make the atmosphere upbeat and positive. Whoever was leading this team, though, turned it into a high-pressure penalty box.

I understood the stakes. I knew that the McCain ricket was on the ropes and rhat top campaign staffers were unnerved. I got that. But I had a different perspective than some of the principals on the ream as to how we should deal with this reality. We were all wired pretty much the same way-intense and focused-bur when things weren’t going well, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a darkened room and hear strange people ,

yelling at one another. Seemed pretty unproducrive to me. Finally, after an inconsistent srrategy of trying to guess what would be asked in the debate, I thoughr we all needed some fresh air. As a lifelong runner, I craved breathing in the outdoors and pounding rhe pavement hard enough to make my thighs hurt and my lungs burn. Coming from the grand, sparkling mountains of the North, I was inspired and energized every time I stepped outside. I repeatedly requested that headquarters carve out some time so I could run-just half an hour would do. Campaign managers would promise to do so, and once in a while rhey did write
it into the schedule-usually at the exact hour when we were
barreling down the freeway in the bus.

That day,

didn’t care that I was in downtown Philly with

protestors lining gray streets, chanting rheir support for anyone but us under the perpetual shadow of skyscrapers. At this point, I’d take it.

I’m glad I wasn’t reading my own press at that time. Weeks out, pretty much the entire Washington-New York media constellation was predicting that I’d make a complete fool of myself in the VP debate.

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