Going Rogue: An American Life (91 page)

“Okay, guys, the ‘show’s tonight;’ I said to rhe staff “Where’s the script? What if it’s raunchy? Worse, what if it’s not funny?” This was make-or-break stuff. Yet still no script, and with just hours to go, I wanted to see what millions of viewers were going
to see.

So, finally, we B Teamers started brainstorming. What about a skit where I pretended to be a journalist and asked Tina condescending questions: “What do you use for newspapers up in Alaska-tree bark?” “What happens if the moose were given guns? It wouldn’t be so easy then, eh?” “Is ‘you betcha’ your state motto?” We sent our ideas up rhe line, and somebody smacked ‘em down. Word came back that Lome was leery of letting Tina and me share the same stage because Tina’s liberal politics might cause her to ad-lib something snarky that would stick like a burr

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SARAH

PALIN

to the campaign. Obviously he knew his NBC star better than I did, but I honestly didn’t think that was plausible. Finally, someone got us a copy of the script. We were sitting in the Suburban and Tucker was reading it, laughing out loud. “This is the funniest thing I’ve ever read, Governor. You have
got
to read this! Seriously, you’re going to laugh your butt off!” I looked at the script. It wasn’t all that funny.
SNL
writers had taken the campaign’s “Drill, baby, drill” mantra and turned it into a risque double entendre about Todd and me. I thought,
Nah.
C’mon, New York talent, we can do better than that.
We checked into a hotel before the show. It was Bristol’s eighteenth birthday, so the staff treated her to Magnolia Bakery’s famous cupcakes. I think I ate six. Then we headed for the studios. The campaign’s “Fey Fears” turned out to be overblown. stead, when I met her, she was friendly and gracious. Fresh-faced, very petite, and wearing jeans, Tina was standing hear the wings holding her adorable little girl, Alice, who was about three.

“Don’t worry!” Tina said when I walked up. “They’ll put makeup on me!”

Then I noticed Alice turning her head back and forth, first to Tina, then to me, then to Tina again.

I smiled. “We’re confusing your daughter.” Tina laughed. Without managers and handlers swarming atound-“Don’t say this, don’t say that”-it was just a nice mom
moment.

“Believe it or not, I’ve gor Republicans in my family,” Tina said, smiling.

“Believe it or not,” I said, “I’ve got Democrats in mine.”
She told me that her husband’s parents were GOP loyalists. I enjoyed meeting them later when they came backstage at a rally. Tina and I chatted for a couple more minutes, then someone came

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Going Rogue

and whisked me off to a tiny windowless dtessing toom ctammed with a couch, a styling chair, and a hrightly lit vanity. Then it seemed fot a nice little stretch that I finally had a moment to take a break. Since August 29, the campaign had been burning fuel at bteakneck speed, and now, in this cramped room, that almost faded to the background. The spotty cell phone coverage in there probably helped a bit. In addition to my duties as governor, we’d been plugged into updates and news and headlines and polls and people and headquarters’ instructions 24/7 for weeks, and now suddenly, it just … stopped. And it was nice, in that little window of time, to be doing just one thing. Not that the room itself wasn’t jumping. Hair. and makeup people buzzed in to quiz Amy and Angela on they did my

hair. Wardrobe people popped in; they wanted to make sure Tina looked exactly like me, so somebody had to go Out and find a flag pin that marched mine. In the hallway I ran into a kid from Wasilla who had moved to New York and was now a stylist for the show. Another Alaskan, one of John Reeves’s daughters who had grown up in Fairbanks, was an extra on
SNL. .
At some point, Amy Poehler came in. She was very pregnant. She and Bristol compared belly sizes and chatted about all the biological details expectant moms swap.
Very nice ofAmy,
I thought. Very down to earth. And funny, of course. Really, everyone in the cast was so friendly and kind to us. There was nothing to fear. I loved Amy’s energy. During the· first dress rehearsal, they unveiled a clever skit, a “rap” on the “Weekend Update” set, featuring two Eskimos, a fake Todd, and a moose. When the scene opens, I’m sitting ar the anchor desk with Seth Meyers and Amy. The serup was that I was supposed to do a rap, but I announce that I’ve changed my mind, so Seth has to ask Amy if she remembers the lyrics from rehearsal. Amy acts like, well, maybe, she
sort of
knows it.

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SARAH

PALIN

Then, wearing all black, she srands up with her
big
belly, and belts out, “One! Two! Three!”

My name is Sarah Palin you all know me

Vice president nominee ofthe GOP

Gonna need your vote in the next election

Can I get a “What? What?” from the senior section
McCain got experience, McCain got style

But don’t let him freak you out when he tries to smile
Cause that smile be creepy

But when I be VP

All the leaders in the world gonna finally meet me.
Then the Eskimos jump onstage, flanking Amy, and she keeps rapping:

How you feel, Eskimo!

(Ice cold!)

Tell me tell me what you feel, Eskimo!

(Super cold!)

Then the guy dressed up as Todd joined the rap. He had the dark hair, the goatee, the Arctic ‘Cat gear-he had most evetything right. After the dress reheatsal, I walked up to him and said, “Let me check you out.”

Then I reached up, grabbed a strand of hair, and curled it down on his forehead. “There,” I said. “Go, Todd!” To this day, I still hear Piper rapping around the house: “You say Obama, I say
Ayers!
Obama …
Ayers!
Obama …
Ayers!”

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Going Rogue

During all this, the writers, the producers, and the campaign continued to hammer out the scripr. Josh Brolin, Mark Wahlberg, and the singer Adele were also on the show that night, as was director Oliver Stone, who made a cameo appearance. Unbelievably, he is a supporter of Communisr dicraror Hugo Chavez, who in a 2006

speech to the UnitedNations referred to the president ofthe United States as “the devil himself’ I did not shake Stone’s hand. Alec Baldwin also guested on the show that evening. The bigwigs haggled back and forth over my appearance with Alec, the writets sending down some

where Alec was basically supposed to perform a comic dissection on me. Then I was supposed to passively rake his arm and stroll offstage.

From a’ political messaging srandpoint, the campaign could see that wasn’t going to work. We put out heads together and sent the producers a counteroffer: Alec would still get his barbs in, then I would say, “Hey, Baldwin, weren’t you supposed to leave the country after the last election?”

Uh … no, producers said.

We tried another idea. Ir happened that I had recently ralked with Alec’s brorher, Stephen, at a GOP fund-raiser. So we sent back another counteroffer based on my actual conversation with Stephen. “Hey, Alec,” .the proposed line went, “Isaw Stephen at a fund-raiser last week and asked him when he was going to knock some sense into you.”

Uh … no.

What’s that line about being able to dish it out?

We went around and around until finally the
SNL
folks agreed to a version of the Stephen line that ultimately appeared in my bit with Alec.

It was watered down, but I still thought it was a funny piece; I’m standing with Lome, and Alec walks up and pretends to think I’m Tina-as-me.

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