Alaska Politics Blog : Vanity Fair: Palin’s life has sometimes played out like an unholy amalgam of Desperate Housewives and Northern Exposure

Alaska Politics Blog

This is the place to talk about Alaska politics, state, local, national. Public life in the Last Frontier has never been more interesting -- Sarah Palin, a new governor, a new Anchorage mayor, the political corruption investigation, the usual hardball Alaska politics. Come here for news, tidbits and information, and join the discussion. We encourage lively debate, but please keep it civil and stay on point. Don't use profanity, make crude comments or attack other posters. Posts that violate the Terms of Use will be deleted. Repeat offenders will lose their ability to post comments.

Contributors

Erika Bolstad

Erika Bolstad covers Alaska issues, including the congressional delegation, from Washington, D.C., for McClatchy Newspapers. Before joining the bureau in 2007, she spent seven years as a reporter at the Miami Herald, where she covered politics, government and the state legislature. E-mail Erika at ebolstad@adn.com.

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham writes about Alaska state politics. He's worked for the ADN in Anchorage and Juneau, covered the legislature for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, and covered Washington state politics for the Tacoma News Tribune. E-mail Sean at scockerham@adn.com

Kyle Hopkins

Kyle Hopkins covers rural affairs, general assignments and politics for the ADN. He covered the 2006 campaign for governor, has blogged extensively about Alaska politics, covered Anchorage city government and was a reporter based in the Mat-Su. He grew up in Southeast Alaska and previously wrote for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and Anchorage Press. E-mail Kyle at khopkins@adn.com and also find him on our rural Alaska blog, The Village.

Don Hunter

Don Hunter covers Anchorage city government and politics. He is a longtime ADN reporter and editor and wrote for the Anchorage Times. E-mail Don at dhunter@adn.com

David Hulen

David Hulen, the ADN's state and local news editor, is responsible for political coverage. He has been an editor and reporter at the ADN for more than 20 years. E-mail David at dhulen@adn.com

Features

SECTION

Sarah Palin

Follow the former Alaska governor's actions as she embarks on life outside of office.

SECTION

Alaska political corruption

The FBI raided state legislature offices in Aug. 2006, and the fallout since has been epic in Alaska's political world.

Vanity Fair: Palin’s life has sometimes played out like an unholy amalgam of Desperate Housewives and Northern Exposure

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: June 30, 2009 - 7:52 am

Comments (0) |

From Erika Bolstad in Washington D.C. --

Todd Purdam's Vanity Fair article about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is out in the August issue of the magazine.

The article begins with a description of Palin's triumphant return to campaign-style politics, with her April appearance at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner, but there also are some new campaign trail tidbits from 2008, like this from McCain-Palin aides:

"In recent rounds of long conversations, most made it clear that they suffer a kind of survivor’s guilt: they can’t quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be. They quietly ponder the nightmare they lived through. Do they ever ask, What were we thinking? "Oh, yeah, oh, yeah," one longtime McCain friend told me with a rueful chuckle. "You nailed it."

And this:

"At one point, trying out a debating point that she believed showed she could empathize with uninsured Americans, Palin told McCain aides that she and Todd in the early years of their marriage had been unable to afford health insurance of any kind, and had gone without it until he got his union card and went to work for British Petroleum on the North Slope of Alaska. Checking with Todd Palin himself revealed that, no, they had had catastrophic coverage all along. She insisted that catastrophic insurance didn’t really count and need not be revealed. This sort of slipperiness -- about both what the truth was and whether the truth even mattered -- persisted on questions great and small."

login or register to post comments

By submitting your comment, you are agreeing to adn.com's user agreement.

UPDATE ON COMMENTS POLICY: Read before posting

Edit your profile and avatar »