When I walked into the Mug-Shot Saloon in Wasilla, the jukebox
was playing “Sweet Home Alabama,” and I felt right at home. It was
a late night in early September, two days after Sen. Lisa Murkowski
conceded the Alaska Republican primary to Tea Party-backed
challenger Joe Miller. Two dozen patrons were shooting pool and
drinking beer in the roadside saloon and didn’t seem much
interested in politics, although I didn’t bother to ask, nor did I
explain what brought me to town when I ordered a Corona with
lime.
A few hours earlier, I’d been hanging out with Todd Palin at his
family’s home on the shore of Lake Lucille. His wife was out of
town on a hunting trip for her Sarah Palin’s Alaska
documentary series on the TLC Network, but with the intercession of
friends, I’d managed to score an audience with the “First Dude,” as
Sarah dubbed him when she was governor. He almost never gives
interviews and so our conversation was mainly off-the-record.
However, it is safe to say that Sarah Palin’s most trusted adviser
can discuss Alaska politics with impressive authority and is a
tenacious defender of his wife’s record as governor.
No purely political motive brought me to Wasilla. Others may
obsess over the “will-she-or-won’t-she” speculation about Palin’s
potential plans for a 2012 presidential run. With the midterm
elections looming, there were more immediate and urgent concerns,
and the success of Palin’s endorsements-including her early support
of Miller’s candidacy in Alaska-had demonstrated her continuing
influence within the GOP. My trip to Wasilla was prompted mainly by
curiosity about the origins of the mental disorder known as Palin
Derangement Syndrome.
Long before she became the subject of international media
scrutiny, Palin had become the idée fixe of a clique of home-state
enemies, including former Republican state legislator Andrew
Halcro; Anchorage “progressive” talk-radio host Shannyn Moore;
University of Alaska music professor Phil Munger; and a gadfly
Democrat named Jeanne Devon whose “Mudflats” blog became a go-to
source for gossip after Palin was picked as John McCain’s 2008
running mate. The disgruntlement of certain erstwhile allies also
fed into the anti-Palin narratives that developed in the media
during the fall 2008 campaign and thereafter.
When I arrived in Wasilla, the big “scoop” was an article in
Vanity Fair that pushed anti-Palin journalism so far
beyond the limits of fairness and good taste that even liberals
felt compelled to denounce it. One pro-Palin source explained to me
that such stories have become predictable: “A journalist on
assignment to write a hit piece will ring up Shannyn Moore, and
she’ll put this person in touch with a slate of people who have an
obvious axe to grind…or just a tenuous connection to Sarah Palin.
We can always tell who the ‘anonymous’ sources are.”
One reason the Palins have been treated as political oddities is
that so many journalists portray Wasilla as a remote wilderness
settlement in an exotic territory, filing stories in the manner of
anthropologists reporting on the customs of savage tribesmen.
Although the population of Wasilla is officially 5,468, the town 40
miles north of Anchorage is a major commercial center in the
thriving Matanuska-Susitna (“Mat-Su”) Valley, with a population of
more than 80,000. Shopping centers and fast-food restaurants line
the highway through town and visiting latte aficionados may be
surprised to discover that the local coffee shop serves organic
fair-trade brew from Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia.
Except for the harsh winters, Sarah Palin’s hometown is no more
exotic than any other rapidly growing suburb in America. But elite
journalists have an instinctive horror of the American
heartland-all those Republicans live there!-and so the
legend of Wasilla as a primitive frontier outpost has been woven
into the major media narrative of anti-Palin mythology.
Getting to hang out with Todd Palin was the kind of career
highlight that requires celebration, and so I headed to the
Mug-Shot Saloon to enjoy a cold one. It was not until after I’d
finished my beer that the realization hit. Indeed, I had scored an
exclusive-news that would shock the journalistic elite: Wasilla
is America.
The Pulitzer Committee has been notified.
