ANCHORAGE, Alaska – In late March, a senior official from the Republican Governors Association headed for Alaska on a secret mission. Sarah Palin was beset by such political and personal turmoil that some powerful supporters determined an intervention was needed to pull her governorship, and her national future, back from the brink. The official, the association’s executive director, Nick Ayers, arrived with a memorandum containing firm counsel, according to several people who know its details: Make a long-term schedule and stick to it, have staff members set aside ample and inviolable family time to replenish your spirits, and build a coherent home-state agenda that creates jobs and ensures re-election. Like so much of the advice sent Palin’s way by influential supporters, it appeared to be happily received and then largely discarded, barely slowing what was, in retrospect, an inexorable march toward the resignation she announced 10 days ago. Palin had returned to her home state from the presidential campaign as one of the hopeful prospects in her struggling party, even if she had much to prove to her detractors.
Standing before the Legislature in January, she vowed to retake her office with “optimism and collaboration and hard work to get the job done.” But interviews in Alaska and in Washington show that a seemingly relentless string of professional and personal troubles quickly put that goal out of reach. Almost as soon as she returned home, the once-popular governor was isolated from an increasingly critical Legislature. Ethics complaints mounted, and legal bills followed. At home, Palin was dealing with a teenage daughter who had given birth to a son and broken up with the infant’s father, a baby of her own with special needs and national news media eager to cover it all.
Friends worried that she appeared anxious and underweight. Her hair had thinned to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser and close friend, Jessica Steele. “Honestly, I think all of it just broke her heart,” Steele said. Yet to the dismay of some advisers, Palin dove into the fray, seeming to relish the tabloid-ready fights that consumed her as the work of the state at times went undone. Not dazzled Her growing list of detractors quickly signaled they were not impressed with her celebrity status.
“We had business to do,” said state Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom, a Republican who had worked on Palin’s 2006 race for governor. “It’s not all about adoration.
” Late last week, as her sport utility vehicle made its way through the town of McGrath, Palin said that the seeds of her resignation had been planted the morning that Sen. John McCain named her his vice presidential choice. “It began when we started really looking at the conditions that had so drastically changed on Aug. 29,” she said.
“The hordes of opposition researchers came up here digging for dirt for political reasons, making crap up.” When Palin made it back to Alaska in November, the state that had once given her an 83 percent approval rating was no longer so enchanted. Democrats who had been crucial to her governing coalition now saw her as a foe. Republican leaders who had previously lost fights with her smelled weakness.
An abortion bill she supported requiring parental consent stalled, the Legislature rejected her choice for attorney general and lawmakers became skeptical of her signature effort to develop a natural gas pipeline. She was met at the Capitol by a growing pile of ethics complaints filed by opponents that, under Alaska state law, had to be investigated. During the campaign, an investigation by the Republican-dominated Legislature had found that Palin abused her office by pressing subordinates to fire her former brother-in-law. She was forced to pay back taxes after it was disclosed that she had billed the state for thousands of dollars in per diem expenses meant to cover travel costs while staying in Wasilla.
Still, of the 19 ethics complaints filed against her, most have been dismissed. “We spend most of our day, my staff, a lot of the members of the Department of Law and myself, dealing with things that have nothing to do with policy or governance,” Palin said in the interview. “It has to do with setting the record straight in this game that’s being played right now.” By all accounts, she became consumed with the complaints, no matter how small – which many were – or where they came from.
When a local Democratic blogger accused her of becoming a “walking billboard” by wearing a jacket emblazoned with the logo of Arctic Cat, her husband’s team sponsor at the Iron Dog snowmobile race, she issued a news release titled, “Governor Comments on Latest Bogus Ethics Complaint.” “Yes, I wore Arctic Cat snow gear at an outdoor event, because it was cold outside,” her statement read. A follow-up release was triumphantly titled, “Ethics Complaint on Governor’s Apparel Dismissed.” Feuds begat feuds.
Palin alleged in June that David Letterman’s tasteless joke that one of her daughters had been “knocked up” by the Yankees star Alex Rodriguez during a trip to New York encouraged “sexual exploitation” of younger women. Her comments then prompted a Republican lawmaker to accuse Palin of underfinancing sexual abuse programs. Palin, in turn, directed public safety officials to give her fodder for a retort, requesting they put out a statement saying her policies would reduce sexual assaults on minors. Even Palin’s supporters came to believe that she was losing focus amid all the fighting.
“It was very relentless,” said state Rep. John Coghill, of North Pole. “My only criticism of her was she probably paid too much attention to it.
” Meanwhile, at home Things on the home front were equally strained. Paparazzi stalked the family, once ambushing Bristol Palin when she arrived at the Beehive beauty salon. Palin was forced to wait for her in the car with Bristol’s baby, Tripp, whose image was fetching a particularly high tabloid bounty.
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