Standing before a warm and welcoming crowd of thousands at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks in the bitter winter of December 2006, newly elected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin positively glowed. A natural-born populist and self-proclaimed reformer, she'd just bested not one but two former governors on her way to the big, white mansion in the capital city of Juneau.
Running against the leaders of her own party, she trounced Republican incumbent and former U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski in the primary, then soundly whipped popular Democratic former Gov. Tony Knowles in the general election. With the thrill of victory coursing in her veins, Palin was happy, excited and ready to shake things up in Alaska politics.
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THE E-MAILS: Read e-mails obtained by Alaska Dispatch that were sent on then-Gov. Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo account:
 Palin-emailsREAD PART I, Conundrum(at)state.ak.us E-mails written by Sarah Palin in the early months of her term show that she wished to keep some state matters out of the public eye. |
"I will unambiguously, steadfastly and doggedly guard the interests of this great state as a mother naturally guards her own," she told a cheering Interior mob estimated at 5,000. She hadn't quite yet found the language that would later become a trademark -- the metaphor wherein she assumes the roll of a grizzly bear protecting its cubs -- but she made it clear she was ready to do battle.
Then she went to Juneau and discovered how hard it is to wrestle an amoeba.
Alaska government, Palin was to learn, is more like a heavily laden oil tanker bound south from Valdez than the nimble fishing boats on which she and husband Todd buzz across the waters of Bristol Bay in summer. The heft of bureaucracy makes the ship of state slow to respond to the hand at the helm. Change does not come quickly or easily. Steering the state of Alaska with 16,000 full-time employees and 13,000 part timers is nothing like running the city of Wasilla with about 50 workers.
Replacing a few key players at the local level in Wasilla can produce a lot of change quickly. It doesn't work that way at the state level, however, and copies of e-mails Palin sent key political advisers, subordinates and friends early in her administration show a quickly developing frustration with this new reality.
Alaska Dispatch has obtained copies of a number of these communications from early in the Palin administration that were sent on the then-governor's personal Yahoo account. They paint a picture of a reform-minded governor wrestling with a reluctant bureaucracy. On Jan. 13, 2007 -- barely a month after the Fairbanks inauguration -- Palin sent an e-mail to chief of staff Mike Tibbles, copied to other top officials in her administration, expressing the opinion that trying to change Alaska state government was already becoming a pain in the butt.
"all this back and forth with some of the people whom i have chosen gets pretty frustrating, especially knowing there are still people on board like (Mike) Chambers and others who have to be replaced,'' Palin wrote in a characteristic style of random capitalization and punctuation. "it should be easier than it is [for] Mike -- for me to say I want to hire someone and then they get hired. "we've hired people I don't even know, people who have adamantly opposed me and my agenda - and i would be an idiot for trusting them now, and yet we have a lot of people out there who WANT to work for a new administration who are just plain losing faith already.''
Chambers was a former Murkowski spokesman who had left the governor's office for a job as chief of communications for the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. Palin clearly wanted the one-time Murkowski apologist gone. Later in the same Jan. 13 e-mail she directed Tibbles to "please have Meg [Stapleton] replace Mike Chambers and others who will be seen as extremely inconsistent in their messages now that they have a new boss and must 'change their message' accordingly.'''
Palin at times appears flabbergasted that it seemed so hard to get the people she wanted into state jobs.
"I know Ryan Colgan [a former aide to Fairbanks mayor Jim Whitaker] bugs folks, but he is supportive and wants a job so he can help,'' she wrote. "Why not find a spot for him somewhere in the 17,000 state employee group. What about John Reeves [a Fairbanks businessman] who's a no-nonsense hard worker? What about the host of others that have been in front of us for about two months now who continually get passed over for people who do not support a 'new energy' agenda that's all about bringing in new people and new ideas?"
"[Staffers] Ivy [Frye] and Kris [Perry] and Frank [Bailey] and others who have been there observing good people for quite some time now can provide the names of others who are waiting patiently to help" she wrote. "In the meantime, Corey Rossi [a U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife biologist and friend of Palin's father, Chuck Heath] needs to be hired -- not Kelly Hepler [the state director of sport fishing] ... Ron Miller [executive director of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority] and others who made very poor decisions must be replaced with more sensible Alaskans who will not squander public funds. My discussions with Andrew [Halcro] sure has me convinced (as I was convinced after 10 months on the trail with him) that he agrees with me that we MUST clean up state government.''
Halcro in 2006 campaigned for Alaska governor as an independent. A moderate Republican who didn't think he had a chance in the conservative Republican primary, he ended up finishing third to Palin and Knowles. A longtime advocate of transparent government, Halcro morphed from an early Palin supporter into an arch-enemy not long after her election and began questioning the motives behind some of Palin's decisions.
Halcro, for instance, has suggested that Palin's desire to oust Miller from the AIDEA was tied to father-in-law Jim Palin's connections to the Golden Valley Electric Association in Fairbanks.
"Is it true that in January of 2007, Jim Palin, Todd's father and former general manager of Matanuska Valley Electric met in Juneau with his daughter in-laws staff (including Mike Tibbles and John Bitney) to advise them not to trust AIDEA in their dispute with GVEA over the Healy (coal) plant?" Halcro asked on his wesbsite. "Is it true that Jim Palin through Todd, lobbied to get rid of Mike Barry, AIDEA Chairman and Ron Miller, AIDEA Executive Director because GVEA saw those two as roadblocks to getting the Healy plant for cheap? It was under Barry & Miller, that the litigation against GVEA was instigated."
The questions have never been fully answered. But in January 2006, as Sarah Palin grabbed the reins of power, these sorts of controversies weren't even on the horizon yet. Palin was then Alaska's great and shining hope.
The state's largest newspaper fawningly dubbed her the "Joan of Arc" of Alaska politics. For those unfamiliar with intracies of the Catholic Church or French history, Joan of Arc is one of a few female saints and a heoroine of France. A peasant girl, she led the French Army to free the country from English domination. She claimed to be getting her guidance from God and was burned at the stake for what an English court called heresy.
Although unlikely to meet that fate, Palin, too, has sometimes claimed to be following the will of God, and at least early in her administration, she looked almost to be aided by divine assistance. Polls showed her Alaska approval rating hovering around 90 percent. Media were calling her the most popular governor in Alaska. And fresh off an election victory fueled in no small part by her efforts to roust Republican Party of Alaska chairman Randy Ruedrich from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for spending some time as a state employee working on party business, Palin appeared intent on cleaning up state government.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into influence peddling by the now-defunct, oil-field services company VECO Corp. was simmering and about to boil. Search warrants had been served at homes and offices of state lawmakers and others over the late summer and fall of 2006, and indictments against leglislators were anticipated. Palin clearly wanted to move quickly to separate herself from any possible taint associated with the political explosion many could see coming as a result of that investigation.
She shared the view of a considerable number of others that VECO had played a role in convincing the Alaska Legislature to hold taxes on the oil industry unreasonably low. She wanted to up taxes and find a way to increase the political pressure to build a multibillion-dollar natural-gas pipeline from the North Slope oil fields to the Lower 48. The e-mails make it clear she understood one of the first steps was to get people who shared her views into place in state government. "How else can I get my point across that it is imperative that I have people who I can trust to look out for Alaska's best interests?'' she asked Tibbles. "I know some of the incumbents are friends or associates of yours, but these people who are in exempt positions know to expect big changes when a new administration comes in."
She added: "Do you have any suggestions as to how I can get my point across to those who need to know that when I believe strongly in something, including who to hire, trust must be granted so that I can move forward,'' she wrote.
The question foreshadowed the point-taking role she would later assume as a self-proclaimed "pit bull with lipstick'' while running as the vice presidential candidate on the Republican national ticket only a year and a half later. By then, Palin appeared to have grown to relish the role of political warrior. In 2007, she was more reserved. "Sorry for rambling on about this,'' she wrote in closing her e-mail to Tibbles, "but I am constantly bombarded with personal calls and emails asking me why good, willing Alaska[ns] are still sitting on the sidelines while 'more of the same' get rewarded with jobs."
One of those good, willing Alaskans was Ted Leonard, the Wasilla finance director. An early and avid Palin supporter, he had been discussing job opportunities with the new governor since shortly after the election. He e-mailed her just after Christmas 2006 to say that things didn't seem to be working out as they planned. Palin's Cabinet didn't think he had the experience to take over the Office of Management and Budget, and Revenue Commissioner Pat Galvin had opted for someone other than Leonard for his deputy commissioner. "I am getting the feeling that your staff may (now) be trying to find a position for me to 'find a position for me,'" Leonard wrote. "...but I would only want to go down to Juneau if my skills and qualification would truly help your administration.''
Palin replied on New Year's Eve 2006, saying she told her staff "to work with you on finding whatever it is that fits YOUR needs. I want you to work for the state...the state needs you...I need you...and the report back to me was that Mike and Pat would be working with you on finding the exact position YOU felt comfortable with....There are dep. commissioner positions in Labor, Revenue, etc. Let me know what you'd like to do.''
Leonard eventually ended up deputy commissioner of the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. The style of his appointment was not unusual for a governor filling so-called "exempt'' positions in state government. Patronage is a well-established part of American democracy. Newly elected executives regularly bring friends, family and acquaintances to office with them to fill top government jobs, but Palin apparently felt at least somewhat uncomfortable about this.
On Feb. 2, she e-mailed about a half-dozen friends, family and staff that she was closing her old e-mail accounts and would be getting a government account, but would also set up a "NEW personal/private/confidential account.''
She cautioned everyone that her official, state e-mail account "is not a confidential/private account so - warning - everyone and their mother will be able to read emails that arrive via that state address. So...please start emailing me at gov.sarah@yahoo.com if it's personal business, and only share that address with our friends whom you trust to keep the address confidential.''
Palin apparently felt the ability to maintain confidentiality would allow her to speak bluntly about candidates for state jobs or people trying to influence the administration. Early on, she showed reservations about pointing fingers at people when she thought it necessary. When it came to her attention that a member of the Anchorage Fish and Game Advisory Board was suggesting she had refused to listen to advice on the selection of a new Commissioner of Fish and Game, she e-mailed her staff that the accusation was untrue, and then lashed out at the complainant.
"I asked around about Steve Florey (sic) from Anc. F&G Adv. Board," Palin wrote. "i was told that he 'demanded' a face-to-face half-hour meeting with me right after I won the election, that Frank Bailey and Mike Tibbles were concerned about his strange behavior and insistence that he meet with me, so they looked him up - evidentaly he is a felon and has a lot of past legal problems and is a strange dude, so they insisted that he meet with them and not me personally (which is the appropriate thing to do). He sounds pretty crazy.''
Flory was a former circulation manager for the Anchorage Daily News who had an affair with an underage newspaper delivery woman in the early 1990s. Though Flory claimed not to know she was underage, he admitted to the affair and settled the case in a plea agreement that reduced the charges against him. A member of the board of the Alaska chapter of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, Flory is described by a friend as sometimes abrasive, but not crazy. His past legal problems appear to amount to several divorces and some non-alcohol-related traffic violations.
Palin clearly understood that it would not be wise to say publicly the sorts of things she said about Flory privately, but yet she yearned to maintain the appearance of governmental transparency. When an Anchorage gossip column reported the governor had attempted to restrict what her cabinet members could say to the media, she sent all commissioners a Jan. 28, 2007, e-mail saying "this is totally false, and leaves me at a loss as to how a reporter would have ever received word of something that is the opposite of what I've expressed to all of you." She then reiterated that she wanted them all to cooperate in making clear things had changed in Juneau under the new governor.
"The goal is for the public to be able to trust that our administration is transparent and trustworthy,'' she wrote, "so you all personally communicating views and opinions is very important and would NEVER be banned....In other words don't do what past administrations have done. I have faith that we're on the right path going a new direction here with freedom in information sharing....Alaskans deserve better than the tired and failed efforts of past administrations' withholding information and expressed opinions by decision makers."
It was a noble thought. But things didn't work out so well. Two years and six months later, Palin resigned as governor, complaining that in the less than 1,000 days of her administration Alaska politics had become so divisive she couldn't function.
"Over the past months I've been accused of all sorts or frivolous ethics violations, such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporter's questions,'' she said that sunny July day in a resignation speech still posted on the state's Web site. "We've won. But it hasn't been cheap; the state has wasted thousands of hours of your time and shelled out some two million of your dollars."
"...you don't hear much of the good stuff in the press anymore, do you?" Palin added in her speech.
Contact Craig Medred at craig_alaskadispatch.com.