Former Palin aide pens tell-all book – Tuesday release

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Oh dear God, this is all the chattering class will want to talk about for the next week. AP Exclusive: Former Palin aide pens tell-all:

"Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years" is due out Tuesday and based on tens of thousands of emails that Bailey said he kept during his time with Palin. It began with working on her 2006 gubernatorial campaign and continued through her failed run for vice president in 2008 and her brief stint as governor.

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Billed as the first Palin book by a former aide, "Blind Allegiance" bolsters the perception of Palin as self-serving, while casting Bailey as her enforcer — willing to do the dirty work, no questions asked.

Bailey became a footnote in Alaska political history by getting embroiled in an investigation of Palin's firing of her police commissioner over allegations the commissioner wouldn't fire trooper Mike Wooten, who'd had a bitter divorce with Palin's sister. Bailey was caught on tape questioning a state trooper official about why Wooten was still employed.

Bailey, who was Palin's director of boards and commissions, was put on leave after news of the recording broke, though he claims his actions were with the prodding of Palin's husband, Todd.

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Among the claims made in the book: that Palin's 2006 gubernatorial campaign coordinated with the Republican Governors Association, or RGA, in violation of campaign rules. The book describes cameras rolling as Palin strode through the door at an Anchorage hotel "over and over and over," for an RGA ad.

At that time, there was a one-year statute of limitations on complaints, and the Alaska Public Offices Commission did not receive any complaints related to Palin and the association during that period. However, the RGA was fined — unrelated to Palin — for late reporting, according to the commission's executive director, Paul Dauphinais.

Bailey said the final straw for him came in the summer of 2009, when Palin didn't attend a rally he believed she'd repeatedly agreed to attend, for supporters of a voter initiative to require minors get parental consent for an abortion. This came after a string of cancellations, including one before a Republican women's group at the Ronald Reagan Library in California. Her aides claimed no one had committed to this well-publicized event..

"Getting Sarah to meetings and events was like nailing Jell-O to a tree," Bailey wrote. On the campaign trail and as governor, Sarah went through at least ten schedulers, with few lasting more than months. Nobody wanted the job because Sarah might fail to honor, at the last minute, the smallest commitments, and making excuses for her became a painful burden."

By the time she cancelled on the parental notification event in Anchorage, Palin had resigned as Alaska's governor and embarked on a new path, one in which she'd become a best-selling author, highly sought-after speaker, political phenom and prospective presidential candidate.

Bailey claims her heart wasn't in governing after she returned to Alaska from her failed run for vice president. At home, she faced a barrage of ethics complaints — nearly all of which were ultimately dismissed — and Bailey said she told him as early as February 2009 that if she could find the right message to tell Alaskans, she'd "quit tomorrow."

She resigned in July 2009.

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Bailey dismisses any suggestion he's disgruntled or bitter; he said he got a front-row seat to state and national politics and was able to recommend judges and set up "hundreds" of board positions. "Yeah, there were some tough, tough times but hopefully I've learned from some of that," he said. "Time will tell."

He said he has no ill feelings toward Palin, with whom he says he hasn't spoken since the fall of 2009. If anything, he said, he feels sad for her.

"I'm sad at a lot of wasted potential," said Bailey, who believed she could accomplish more than she did as governor. "I certainly don't hate her but I look at a lot of wasted opportunities on her part."