Matthew Zencey - Unlikely Liberal: Sarah Palins Curious Record as Alaskas Governor

un likely LIBERAL

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Sarah Palins Curious Record as Alaskas Governor

Matthew Zencey

Copyright 2012 Potomac Books, Inc.

Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Zencey, Matthew, 1957
Unlikely Liberal: Sarah Palins curious record as Alaska governor / Matthew Zencey.
1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61234-185-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-61234-186-6 (electronic)
1. Palin, Sarah, 1964 2. AlaskaPolitics and government1959 3. Governors AlaskaBiography. 4. Women governorsAlaskaBiography. I. Title.
F910.7.P35Z46 2012
979.8052092dc23
[B]

2012018886

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets the American
National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.

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To Cindy, Nathan, and Kyle

For twenty-one years, I wrote editorials about Alaska politicians and public affairs. When Sarah Palin was governor, I was the editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News, the states largest newspaper. I followed Palins career since she broke onto the statewide scene with her surprising second-place finish in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor in 2002. She made multiple visits to us at the Daily News editorial board, as a candidate for governor and after she won election.

Our paper did not endorse Palin for governor. Her experience as small-town mayor paled in comparison to the former two-term governor she ran against, and we disagreed with her socially conservative stands. But once she took office, we enthusiastically supported her three major initiatives: ethics reform, oil tax reform, and her brand-new approach to promoting a gas pipeline from Alaskas North Slope to the Lower 48. When she fired her public safety commissioner, giving reasons that didnt make sense at the time, my colleagues and I wrote critical editorials, holding her accountable in what soon erupted into the Troopergate scandal.

After John McCain picked Palin to run for vice president, I did numerous interviews about her for national and international media, including appearances on ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS, Al Jazeera, Irish Radio, and others. As the campaign progressed, our paper ran a series of editorials candidly assessing her performance as governorboth her strengths and her weaknesses. That series was co-winner of the 2009 Alaska Press Club prize for public service journalism. Judge Loretta Tofani, herself a Pulitzer Prize winner, said, Through these editorials, I learned more about the record of Sarah Palin than I did from any of the dozens of stories I read about her in national newspapers and magazines. Compared to these editorials, everything else I read about Sarah Palin feels like fluff.

That series reflects my personal philosophy as a journalist who works the opinion side of the trade: no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent principles. I try to apply these principles in a fair-minded way to public issues and public officials. I am a commentator, not a reporter, but its not my job to mindlessly cheerlead for, or attack, any particular politician or cause. I have written critical editorials about politicians whose policies I generally supported, such as U.S. senator Mark Begich (D-AK) and Alaskas previous Democratic governor Tony Knowles. I have written editorials supporting initiatives announced by Palins successor, Republican Sean Parnell, and welcoming his enthusiasm for serving in the office that Sarah Palin vacated.

Many of Palins critics and supporters engage in ad hominem attacks. That was not my style. To me, the point of journalistic commentary is not to tear down the public official in question; it is to express a legitimate difference of opinion or hold the official accountable. Throughout my career, I strove to be an intellectually honest commentator, not a polemicist or propagandist.

Youll have to look elsewhere if you care about Bristols pregnancy, the feud with Levi, Trigs birth, the state of Palins marriage to Todd, her career in high school basketball, Pipers progress in school, and other parts of Palins personal life. In my view, a politicians personal life is a public issue only if it reveals hypocrisy on a political question or significantly compromises his or her ability to do the job.

One surprising thing about Sarah Palins career is how a governor who once enjoyed a 90 percent approval rating became such a polarizing figure after she vaulted onto the national stage. Americans seem to either love her or hate her their opinions of her are black or white. Her conservative supporters appear to think she can do nothing wrong and blast the media for daring to note anything critical about her. Palins critics appear to think she can do nothing rightthat she got where she is on good looks and good luck.

What I offer here is what we at the Anchorage Daily News offered in our prize-winning series of editorials: an intellectually honest look at Palins performance as Alaskas governor, her strengths and weaknesses, her triumphs and her failures, and what her time as governor says about her capabilities to serve as vice president or president.

Many thanks to Potomac Books for agreeing to publish my work. Whatever one may think of Sarah Palin as a potential national leader, I hope readers will find this is a fair account of both her accomplishments and failures while serving as governor of Alaska.

My agent, Jim Schiavone, was instrumental in helping get the book published. Im thankful he made that trip to the Alaska Writers Conference, where we met. I appreciate Elizabeth Demerss willingness to recommend publishing my work and her guidance on the manuscript. Copy editor Deirdre Ruffino flagged several duplicative passages and spared me the grunt work of ensuring the text meets the necessary conventions of style.

Thanks also to my wife, Cindy, who was supportive even though she definitely does not share my enthusiasm for politics. My sons, Nathan and Kyle, who were born and raised in Alaska and began paying attention to politics when Palin was governor, were also a great source of encouragement.

My goal in writing the book was to create a single volume that pulls together what is known about Palins performance as governor, including my own observations as a journalist who followed some of her major initiatives. As I mention in the Source Notes section, this account draws heavily on excellent reporting by colleagues at the Anchorage Daily News, as well as reports by the Juneau Empire, Associated Press, and many other national media outlets.

This is the first book about Palin to include material from the archive of publicly released e-mails during her term as governor. I am indebted to the media organizations that obtained the e-mails and created online, searchable archives.