Going Rogue: An American Life (90 page)

Going Rogue

sound bite was written inroa rally speech. The left went nuts, cusing me of lowdown rhetoric unworthy of presidential politics. And although it was headquarters that had issued the bite,

the folks thete did little more than duck.

I did not apologize for calling it like I saw it and wondeted out loud why I was prohibited from calling the other ticket out on more of its strange associations. I was told not to discuss Obama’s pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wtight. I will fotever question the campaign for prohibiting discussion of such associations. All the more since these telltale signs Obama’s views, carefully concealed with centrist campaign-speak, have now been brought into the light by his appointments and actions in office.

By the time Joe the Plumber started making news, we were about ten days out from election day, and Jason rold us he had an idea. We were about to do a campaign swing through Virginia, so why not turn it ,into a Joe the Plumber tour? Along with local dignitaries onStage, we’d have regulatfolks. After some rugof-wat with headquarters, we got the idea approved and, in the midst of got a call from Matthew Scully.

“Hey, guess who lives in Northern Vitginia?” Scully said. “Tito the Builder!”

Right on!

None of us had ever met Tiro, but someone tracked him down. He rolled up to our Leesburg rally in his big old construction truck, decked out in his job site gear, looking totally, ruggedly Alaskan, and gave perhaps the most rousing introduction of the entire campaign. It was so absolutely real-nor orchestrated or stage-crafted. No pipe-and-drape or stylists or sctipts or $150,000

borrowed wardrobe. Just a real American who was excited about what John McCain represented.

Our Joe the Plumber rour played out like that all across Vit
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SARAH PALIN

ginia with thousands of regular’ Americans coming our wirh their signs-NGUYEN THE GROCER, THERESA THE TEACHER, TOM

THE REAL ESTATE AGENT, GREG THE TELEPROMPTER GUY, WENDY THE

WAITRESS,

Speaking of wairresses, in Ashland, Virginia, we made a scheduled visit Homemades by Suzanne and were warmly greeted

with cookies, coffee, and plates of chicken salad-a real hometown spread, I sat down talk with Suzanne, the business owner,

abour how John’s lower rax policies would help grow her company, We shared coffee with her employees, and they shared their concerns over health coverage, We had owned a business. I had worked as a waitress, struggled with obtaining health insurance, balanced family and work. I had been in their shoes and had no doubt that I might someday be there again.

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For years people cold me, “You look like rhar lady on
Saturday
Night Live.”
One Halloween I dressed up as Tina Fey-it didn’t take much costuming

do it. So when Tina started playing

me on
SNL,
I cold rhe B team, “Hey, I was Tina Fey before she
was me.”

I had liked some seasons of
SNL
since I was a teenager, sneaking around watch it so my parents wouldn’t catch me. So when

she began impersonating me, it was a bit surreal. But from the beginning, I liked the idea that John and r might appear on the show.

“Let’s
do
this;’ I said. “Let’s go on and neutralize some of this, and have some fun!”

Of course, the idea was met with massive back-and forch haggling. Had we done it back in September, I think we might have had a shot at evening the odds with the
SNL
crew. As it stood,

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Going Rogue

though, Tina’s impression of me became so omnipresenr-and so unchallenged-that some people blurred
SNL
skit dialogue wirh what I had actually said.

The classic example was Tina dressed up as me, saying, “I can see Russia from my house.” Which of course I’ve never said. After that episode, many Alaskans sent me photos of themselves standing on the Alaska shore with Russia visible over their shoulders. (Not only can you see

-you can
swim
to Russia from Alaska, as

hardcore athlete Lynne Cox did in 1987.)

Finally, when it was much too late ftom a tactical standpoint to say no, headquarters agreed to let us do the show. I was glad about it, but as time passed, I wotried that we still hadn’t seen a script. Word filtered down from on high, “Don’t worry about ir. We’ve got it under conttol. John and Lome Michaels are good friends. They’re not gonna screw you.” So we’d wait some more, and we’d bug headquarters some more and … nothing. And there was still nothing on October 18, the morning we flew into New York City to do the show.