What now for Sarah Palin? For nine weeks the world watched her every move, and gaffe. Now she is back in Wasilla. Ed Pilkington goes north to Alaska to find out.
SIXTY-EIGHT days that shook the world. Or at least shook the town of Wasilla, population 9000. A woman called Sarah is picked up by the collar of her jean jacket, flown thousands of kilometres into the "lower 48", as Alaskans call continental North America, slapped into a new wardrobe costing more than $150,000, and paraded in front of thousands of baying Republicans, who instantly fall in love with her. Result: an individual barely known outside Alaska becomes an instant celebrity, with first-name recognition not just across the US but right around the world.
- Palin returns to Alaska
- Worldwide celebrity status
- Push for 2012 White House bid
The best way to get a sense of the magnitude of the story, of how so much has changed so quickly, is to follow in her footsteps as she makes the reverse journey. Sarah Palin's return to Wasilla took place last Wednesday, the day after the presidential election, when she stepped off the McCain-Palin campaign plane for the final time at Anchorage airport. It has already been suggested that she might be the next Republican presidential candidate — a gaggle of chilled supporters had gathered to scream "2012! 2012!" at her — but on that icy tarmac, she said that her only thought for four years' time was getting her youngest child, Trig, into kindergarten.
Such dissembling is to be expected from a politician who needs to map her next moves with precision if she is to avoid further pitfalls. Yet it seems doubtful that a woman as ambitious as Palin could resist any potential advances from senior Republicans. Small-town mayor; state governor; presidential candidate — the sequence has a ring to it.
But before she can make even the slightest step towards a bid for 2012, she has to secure her re-entry to Alaska, and this could prove extremely difficult. She has come back to Wasilla in deep winter. And like the view from her house, the political climate is much colder now.
I first set foot in the tiny conglomeration of detached houses and fast-food outlets that Palin calls home in late August, when John McCain had just announced her as his presidential running mate, and a strong sun was beating down. People were dressed in T-shirts stamped with the words "Valley trash" — a disparaging comment once made about Wasilla residents that they have reclaimed and now wear as a badge of pride.
Driving through Wasilla for the second time, now in winter, vivid memories of the past crazy weeks flood back. Here is the Wasilla Assembly of God, the church in which Palin used to worship. It was here that she talked about the Iraq war being a God-given task, and where she once received the spiritual protection of a witch-hunter.
Down the road is the public library, where as Wasilla's mayor, Palin had tried to ban Daddy's Roommate, a tale about a father who gets divorced and sets up home with a man called Frank. The library no longer stocks the volume, but a helpful librarian does point me to And Tango Makes Three, a picture book featuring a couple of gay penguins at New York's Central Park zoo.
Another short hop away is Palin's house. It sits at the end of an icy drive that must test the skills of the "first dude", Todd Palin. From the front of the house, there is a magnificent view of Lake Lucille, and behind it the snow-capped Chugach Mountains. And look there! Between the peaks — can it really be? Russia!
This is the environment to which Palin has returned after what must have been a head-spinning spell in the limelight. It's a beautiful location for some intensive rest and recuperation. "I guess any human being would want a break from what she's just been through," says Kaylene Johnson, Palin's neighbour in Wasilla, who has written her biography. "She's been in a whirlwind, caught up in something very powerful."
"There's no modern parallel," says Evan Tracey, head of a media-research company specialising in politics. "She's achieved national celebrity at a level most politicians can only dream of."
But it has also been an extremely bruising ride. After the high of the Republican national convention, there came the low of the Katie Couric interviews, the ridicule of Tina Fey and finally, the plummeting poll ratings. By the end of the race, six out of 10 voters thought her unqualified to be president. So that's it then. Back to Wasilla. End of the Sarah Palin story. Don't count on it.
Within hours of McCain's defeat at the ballot box, a powerful array of figures within the conservative movement had begun to work on her behalf, planning her next move and lobbying for a presidential run in 2012. They include editors of some of the most influential right-wing journals in the country, such as William Kristol of Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard and The New York Times, who has barely been able to contain his adulation of Palin. He is joined by directors of several powerful Republican organisations and senior fellows of an array of conservative think tanks that act as the ideas factory of the movement.
Take Brent Bozell, president of the Conservative Victory Committee, which works to get right-wing candidates elected at all levels of political life. He hosted a meeting of 20 top Republicans at his weekend home in Virginia last Thursday, in which Palin's name featured prominently. He sees Palin as a fresh face who is capable of building a national following and yet is unashamedly conservative. "There are many in the Republican Party who wrap themselves around conservative ideology when campaigning but abandon it as soon as they are elected. People have grown wary of that betrayal, and in Sarah Palin they see someone who truly espouses what she believes."
Bozell is not troubled by the bad publicity that swirled around Palin during the campaign. "The media talks of 'damage'. Guess who else had 'damaging' qualities? Ronald Reagan, and he won landslides."
Senior Republicans are rattled to their bones by Barack Obama, and particularly by his enormous political appeal. They are desperate to find a new leader with sufficient charisma to compete on his level. For many, Palin fits the bill, pointing to her ability to attract huge crowds across America.
Over the next few months, a closer study will be made of her potential, and if at that point she is considered to be a possible future salvation for the movement in its darkest hour, then money will be no object. "There are a lot of open arms for Palin," Bozell says. "If she shows seriousness of purpose, there will also be an open cheque book available to her."
Until this week her comments on the subject of 2012 have been ambiguous. There was a ripple of excitement when she told NBC towards the end of the presidential campaign that she wasn't "doing this for nought" — a comment interpreted as an open expression of interest in 2012, though her people insisted it was a reference to 2008. When she was pranked by a Canadian comedian in the guise of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, she responded to the suggestion she should stand for the White House with the reply: "Maybe in eight years."
And if she does have real presidential ambitions, Palin will need to start rebuilding the support of her home state. Her popularity ratings in Alaska, which as governor had been the highest in the country at 80%, have fallen in the course of the campaign to 61%.
She has also managed to shatter the trust vested in her by important sections of Alaskan public life in the past two months. Strange to tell, but until August 29, the day that Senator John McCain hoisted her out of obscurity, she was seen as a genuinely bipartisan politician who was prepared to work across party divides in the best interests of the people. As governor, she co-operated closely with Democrats in the state assembly on plans to build a gas pipeline and on redistributing some of the wealth of the oil companies to Alaskans.
All that goodwill, blown to smithereens. "I thought I knew Sarah Palin pretty well," says Beth Kerttula, the leading Democrat in the Alaskan legislature. "Then lo and behold she runs for national office and turns into something we never thought she could be. She expressed the ugly side of American populism. And she did it with such gusto."
"People were disgusted that she allowed herself to be portrayed as a radical Republican," Johnson says. "Where is the Sarah Palin that we know and love? To watch her display extreme partisanship on the national stage was very odd."
Troopergate, the scandal involving a family dispute with her former brother-in-law, who Palin tried to have dismissed from the state's police force, could provide a focal point for the newly disgruntled Alaskan legislature. Its investigation found her guilty of breaching ethics guidelines, and assembly members have yet to decide whether to press sanctions against her. The temptation may prove irresistible.
Other big hurdles stand in the way of any Palin-for-president bandwagon. How does she maintain a high national profile from moose country? As Christopher Clark, who has worked as an aide to Palin, puts it: "Let's face it, until August 29 no one took much notice of Alaska unless we had a major oil spill."
One way to go would be to try to step into the shoes of Ted Stevens (the Republican senator recently convicted on corruption charges who is struggling to hang on to his seat), and head to Washington. But that would run the risk of losing a great attraction for die-hard Republicans: her Washington-be-damned kudos as an outsider.
THE other great challenge is to extend her reach. To run a successful bid for the presidency she would have to prove she can appeal to those independents and moderates without whose support the Republican Party will never take back the White House. Johnson thinks she has that ability. "If she can show that side of herself, that bipartisan side, she will be very powerful."
Others doubt it. They clearly include senior members of the McCain campaign who now seem to have no other purpose than to destroy Palin's presidential hopes by issuing unattributed and unflattering press briefings.
Another doubter is James Mann, a foreign affairs expert at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, who sees her palpable lack of knowledge in this area as an insurmountable problem. In one of those catty McCain camp briefings, she is reported to have thought that Africa is a country, not a continent. "I have a hard time thinking she will be able to turn herself into a credible candidate on foreign policy by 2012," Mann says.
At least there is one electoral group on whose support she can depend: small-town yokels in two-bit bars the length and breadth of America. They frequent places such as the Mug-Shot Saloon in Wasilla, a smoky establishment on the edge of town with caricatures of its regulars on the wall: Woodpecker Jim, Pa Pa Fletch and Amazon Debbie, to name a few. Its clientele was all fired up when I visited Wasilla on the night of Palin's convention speech. The bar was doing a brisk trade in "Palin Pizzas" at $8 a throw. The place was packed, and the entire throng roared when she told her joke about the difference between hockey moms and pitbulls.
When I went back there this week, the Palin lovers were still there, still chuckling over the answer — lipstick — and still fired up. "We feel about Sarah Palin the same way you Brits feel about the Queen," said Mike Spalding, chewing tobacco. He quit shaving in 1992, and has a grey beard down to his navel.
"She's a rock star," his drinking pal, Bob Moore, chimed in, drawing on a pipe under a 10-gallon hat. "She's the hottest governor on the planet. And we've got her back."
GUARDIAN