The 456-page manuscript about Sarah Palin is in the tradition of juicy political tell-alls. Ex-aide's book a harsh Palin portrait

A new memoir from an embittered former aide to Sarah Palin includes a trove of e-mails that vividly illustrate her intense focus on image and depiction in the media.

The e-mails, apparently from the former Alaska governor, portray Palin as nearly obsessed with her political adversaries and consumed with every slight, real or perceived. (See: POLITICO's 2012 Live)


The unpublished manuscript, obtained by POLITICO, reveals Palin, as a candidate for governor, penning letters-to-the-editor in praise of herself, to be sent under other names. It blames the candidate for inflaming, rather than ignoring, scurrilous rumors. And it quotes her pledging to avoid appearing on any network other than Fox News, referring to the rest as “the bad guys.”

The content of the unpublished manuscript, written by Frank Bailey, was first reported by the Anchorage Daily News.

A Palin ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Bailey and Palin corresponded and that the former aide had access to Palin’s passwords and her e-mail account. But the Palin ally said that the content should be viewed through the lens of Bailey being “the quintessential disgruntled employee,” who had been denied senior jobs he sought, cut out of Palin’s vice-presidential campaign, and been caught up in the “troopergate” scandal — details Bailey confirms in the proposed book, which is titled “In Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years.”

Bailey’s 456-page manuscript is in the tradition of juicy political tell-alls by former allies turned enemies. Yet despite the intense interest in his subject, Bailey, who has reportedly been marketing his draft since the fall of 2009, has had difficulty selling it to a publisher — a likely reflection of his primary focus on the small world of Alaska politics. He co-wrote the book with Jeanne Devon, publisher of the anti-Palin website Mudflats, and Ken Morris, a Palin critic and former Wall Street executive.

But in addition to his detailed treatment of Palin’s rapid home state ascent, Bailey, a former Alaska Airlines manager who worked on her 2006 gubernatorial campaign, also shares scores of e-mails he claims are from Palin that reinforce the worst perceptions of her.

The former governor has pointed to her portrayal in the news media to explain her sagging poll numbers. But in Bailey’s manuscript it’s her own apparent words that do the greatest damage.

Much of the proposed book’s text focuses on the topic that, he writes, ultimately consumed her governorship: The maintenance of her public image, an obsession with rumors about her family, and her frustration with her portrayal in the media.

“Todd just told me you had spoken with him awhile back and reported that some law enforcement friends of yours claimed some dumb ass lie about Track not being Todd’s son? This really, really disgusts me and ticks me off,” Palin, according to Bailey, e-mailed aide Scott Heyworth in January of 2006. “I want to know right now who said it, who would ever lie about such a thing… this is the type of bullsh** lie about family that WILL keep me from running for Governor.”

Palin later repeated the obscure rumor in an e-mail to supporters, prompting Bailey to wonder about her “penchant for inflaming issues that, left on their own, might disappear” — a recurring phenomenon in Palin’s public life.

By the spring of 2009, just months after she and John McCain had lost the presidential race, Palin is depicted as tired of being criticized and focused more on her national image than on Alaska issues.

“I hate this damn job,” she wrote in an April 28 e-mail to Bailey and another confidant.

A month later, she delves deeply into the case of Carrie Prejean, the Miss California beauty pageant contestant who voiced her support for traditional marriage.

“I got slammed on Fox News today for ‘not defending’ (Carrie Prejean), speaking out for someone unfairly and mercilessly attacked by hypocritical media,” Palin wrote.

“I think it would be good to have that statement out there that of course I support this young, strong woman who voiced her honest opinion onstage — then got punished and crucified for doing so. What kind of statement can go out to solidify my already spoken support for her? I know if I were in her shoes (and I have been) it does mean a lot to have someone with the balls to publicly speak up in support. I’ve asked for [Donald] Trump’s contact info so I can thank him, too.”

Palin, Bailey writes, thought about contacting the media to explain her support for Prejean — but then reconsidered.

“If I call those reporters then I‘m on the hook to answer all their other questions they want,” she wrote.

Concludes Bailey after the episode: “The question we failed to ask was: What does this possibly have to do with being governor of Alaska? While it had nothing to do with Alaska, it had plenty to do with publicity. Fox News made this an ongoing story, giving it wall-to-wall coverage. Sean Hannity in particular latched on with both hands. With Sarah suddenly an outspoken supporter, he had gorgeous Prejean on one arm and sparkling Governor Palin on the other. He appeared a happy man.”

Palin wasn’t entirely divorced from local issues at the time, but her fixation on appearances veered into the absurd, Bailey writes.

When an Anchorage TV news station, KTUU, ran an online poll in May asking Alaskans if they agreed with her decision to reject federal stimulus dollars for energy, Bailey writes that Palin’s inner circle “invested time, energy, and emotion into linking our computers and utilizing our software into generating votes in favor.”

Refreshing the results to run up the votes, they e-mailed one another.

When an aide said Palin was initially leading the unscientific survey, the governor responded: “Oh, thank God!”

In the months before she resigned the governorship, when her poll numbers began to slip, Palin’s advisers sought to bolster her spirits by making the unsubstantiated case that she was being targeted by the Obama White House and the Democratic National Committee.

Palin seemed to believe the charge but conceded there was no evidence.

“We have no smoking gun that proves we’re being targeted by the bad guys, so it probably sounds to many like I’m a whining b#*(h who stubbornly refuses to govern in the public’s best interest,” she wrote in an e-mail to some of her closest advisers, according to Bailey.

But Palin wasn’t just wary of Democrats.

After becoming governor by defeating an incumbent of her own party, Palin became ever suspicious of the Republican establishment.

Bailey reveals that she didn’t even support her own eventual ticketmate in the GOP presidential primary, recalling that in a January 2008 e-mail Palin wrote, “Huck’s a good pick for me, just fyi.”

Her distrust of Republican insiders was crystallized in a scathing e-mail she sent in June 2009.

After they couldn’t confirm her attendance at an event, the GOP congressional campaign committees rescinded their invitation for Palin to speak at their fundraising dinner that month in favor of Newt Gingrich. The Alaskan reacted by typing a scathing assessment of the former speaker and the national party to her team in which she credited God for keeping her away from the Washington fundraiser.

“Yes, (Newt/GOP) are egotistical, narrow-minded machine goons … but all the more reason God protected me from getting up on stage in front of ,5000 political and media ‘elites’ to praise him, then it be shown across the nation.” Palin wrote in the e-mail.

“At some point Newt would have shown his true colors anyway and we would have been devastated having known we’d earlier prostituted ourselves up in front of the country introducing him and acting like that good ol’ rich white guy is the savior of the party,” she continued.

Palin went on to express another reason she was thankful to the Almighty that she wasn’t attending the fundraising gala.

“Plus, I had nothing to wear, and God knew that too. Party machinery sucks. I can’t tell you how much I hate it — nothing ever changes — we went through it before and after the VP campaign,” she wrote. “I’ve gone through it all my career. We just don’t fit into it, and maybe we should thank God for that.”

Palin’s logistical difficulties and her frequent backing out of commitments are a common theme in the manuscript.

“As mentioned in an earlier chapter, getting Sarah to meetings and events was like nailing Jell-O to a tree,” Bailey wrote. “On the campaign trail and as governor, Sarah went through at least 10 schedulers, with few lasting more than months. Nobody wanted the job because Sarah might fail to honor, at the last minute, the smallest commitments, and making excuses for her became a painful burden. In at least one instance, a scheduler quit after breaking down in tears; another left after being accidentally copied on an e-mail from Sarah trashing her.”

It was, Bailey claims, a scheduling issue that ultimately prompted him to lose faith in Palin.

After committing to attend an Anchorage ceremony in honor of an abortion restriction in August 2009, Palin backed out just days before the well-publicized event, Bailey claims.

Palin saves much of her ire for the media.

In June 2009, nearly a year after her disastrous interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, Palin is portrayed as still holding a grudge toward the broadcaster.

“She SUCKED in ratings before she stumbled upon her little gig mocking me,” Palin wrote, according to Bailey. “She did almost lose her job before that VP interview …”

And after Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson, appeared on NBC’s “Today” show for a July 2009 interview with Ann Curry, Palin was incensed.

“Sickening, sickening,” Palin wrote in an e-mail. “I watched Levi this morning. Journalism ethics are nonexistent.

“They sat there and let the coached puppet spew one lie after another, starting with ‘when I lived there …’ And Anne [sic] Curry wraps it up with ‘Thanks for providing us insight into her,’” a fuming Palin wrote.

The lesson Palin derived from the episode while she was governor was to ignore all television networks except Fox, which would later sign her as a contributor.

In announcing to aides her decision to speak only to Fox, Palin described all the competing networks as “the bad guys.”

“Every time we participate with the bad guys we are telling viewers/readers: ‘go watch them! Tune in to what they have to say to bash us today!’ I can’t do that anymore,” Palin wrote. I am through with the idiots who use and abuse us — we can NOT win them over, I hate giving them ratings boosts.”

Palin concluded, “Lesson learned. Final one. Networks are not our friends. Talking to them harms my family, admin, record, reputation, Tripp, etc. No more.”

Bailey paints Todd Palin as the gatekeeper, who, he writes, at times tried to keep criticism from his wife to avoid distracting her.

The Palins shared, he writes, an instinctive libertarianism that has also showed in her public life.

“Sarah spoke of an aversion to our no-smoking in restaurant and motorcycle helmet laws. As governor in September 2007, she wrote specifically, ‘I want to make sure DOT knows my position on helmet laws — I don’t support them.’ After alerting us to her aversion to these laws, Sarah then added, ‘Heck, I don‘t even believe in click-it-or-ticket seat-belt laws, and I filmed the damn commercial for ‘em.’”



Jonathan Martin contributed to this report.