Alaska Politics Blog : Who is 'The Wasilla Project'?

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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.

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

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Who is 'The Wasilla Project'?

Posted by Alaska_Politics

Posted: October 8, 2008 - 6:02 pm

Comments (0) |

From Kyle Hopkins in Anchorage -

Earlier this week, a polished, four-minute video appeared on a Web site called www.wasillaproject.com titled "Sarah Palin: The rape kit controversy."

The clip includes interviews with former Anchorage Rep. Eric Croft, Wasilla council woman Dianne Woodruff and others.

So who made it?

Paul Lundahl, a San Francsico/Bay area filmmaker said he and a group of friends and co-workers spent about four days in the Valley late last month shooting the clip. They also interviewed Sen. Lyda Green, Anne Kilkenny and Palmer pastor/community activist Howard Bess, and plan to produce three more videos.

"If we didn't do this and McCain's elected on Nov. 4 and we felt like ... people didn't know who Sarah Palin was, it would feel really bad," Lundahl said.

The obvious question: Does the group have any connection to the Obama campaign?

"Absolutely none," Lundahl says.

He is a Democrat, as are most of the other Wasilla Project members.

"The campaigns didn't know about what we were doing ... We knew the production values of videos we were producing would make people wonder: 'Who's behind this?'"

Lundahl owns a production company in Sausalito. Some of the Wasilla Project crew work there too, but not all of them. They used their own gear, donated their time and raised about $7,000 to buy airline tickets and rental cabins, he said.

"It was very, very indie style."

A friend, who Lundahl didn't name, hosted a fund-raiser in her home to help pay the bills, he said.

He said the goal was to make videos that aren't insulting or heavy-handed. The rape kit clip is up to about 18,000 hits on YouTube. Originally, they thought about creating a kind of video version of Kilkenny's widely read letter-from-Wasilla.

The group plans to post the next video soon - this one on Palin's history as a social conservative. Look for talk about her abortion stance, and maybe her views on creationism, Lundahl said.

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