Dirty Sexy Politics Read online

  My mom nodded. “Yes,” she said, then told me to get ready as soon as possible. “I love you. It’s going to be fine. I’ll explain everything later.”

  I wanted to ask more questions, but a closer study of my mother’s face told me that she was as frustrated as I was. Grabbing my purse and giant bag with my UGG boots and pajamas—my hotel room uniform—as well as the knit dress that I had decided to change into later, and all my toiletries and makeup, I headed to the parking lot with Shannon and Heather.

  The bus roster for the day said it all: Mr. Burns had assigned me, Shannon, and Heather to the third bus, the one with the smallest bathroom and a smell so foul you kept wanting to open the windows, except there weren’t any.

  There was no fight left in me. We just got on, joined by random staffers I had barely met and my mother’s hair and makeup people. I spoke to no one, just squeezed into the awful bathroom with my massive tote bag and, while the bus was rocking and weaving to our next destination, an Ohio high school where my father would present his running mate to the world, I tried to change dresses and get my hair into a tighter ponytail.

  When a zipper became stuck on my bra, I kicked open the bathroom door, stood in the back of the bus in my bra, and called out to my friends. Modesty was an extravagance at that point, but I did try to turn away, allowing everybody on the bus to see the back of my bra. More than anything, I wanted to stop crying. I did deep breathing exercises, and focused on the next few hours to come—the TV cameras, the crowded auditorium, the faces to meet and greet, the commotion and excitement.

  This nomination was meant to stir things up, rejuvenate support, throw the world a curveball, and sweep us to victory. The running mate announcement was the biggest turning point of any presidential campaign. I kept saying to myself, “Pull your shit together. Pull your shit together. You’re about to meet Sarah Palin—does it rhyme with Allen?—and her family. This is an important moment in your life.”

  By the time I got off the bus, I was able to put on the fake smile that I was so good at, and follow my mom and all the staffers and advisers, our entire campaign entourage, as it paraded through the back door of a high school gym, and into its locker room, where a makeshift greenroom had been set up, with folding chairs and tables.

  Blond Amazon motioned me to follow her. Behind a blue curtain were Sarah and Todd Palin, as well as Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. My father came over and introduced us. I remember how cheerily I said, “Hi, I’m Meghan, such an honor to meet you! We’re about to go on a great adventure together!”

  “What an honor and privilege it is to be here,” Sarah said—or words to that effect. She thanked my father, but soon enough the greetings were over and an uncomfortable silence fell over us, reminding me of a seventh-grade dance with everybody standing awkwardly around. It was as if, after the rehearsed niceties, it was too hard to move into anything real—or make more of an effort.

  Outside, beyond the blue curtain, past the stage and audience, journalists were assembled on risers, along with dozens of cameras and microphones, waiting to record a few minutes of the introductions, which would, in turn, be cut down to a few seconds, a few snapshots and sound bites. What was the point of trying to say something real, anyway? And what was the hurry?

  As I stood alongside the Palins, my first impressions of Sarah were that she was the most beautiful politician I had ever seen, that she seemed surprisingly calm, and that she had a ton of kids. She seemed all American, too, and I remember noticing how formally she addressed my father, calling him “sir.” She was wearing a black suit with three-quarter sleeves and a cool pair of red patent leather peep-toe shoes. They were hip, even trendy. And I remember liking that. More than anything, I was excited by the fact that she was a woman, and with each passing minute the reality of this, and what it meant, not just for me, but for the country and the world, was sinking in. It wasn’t only that she was a woman. She was such a beautiful one at that.

  I loved the way she and my dad looked together—physically, I thought they complemented each other very well. There was also discussion about Sarah being a “maverick,” something I thought we’d have in common.

  But when I looked over at Bristol, who was holding her baby brother, Trig, I remember thinking two things: That poor girl looks shell-shocked and why does she have a giant blanket covering her stomach?

  A new phase was dawning in our lives, and in the life of our campaign. I felt that too. The relationship between a presidential candidate and the running mate is extremely personal and intimate. In essence these two people and their two families become one family and one entity. Our Pirate Ship had spent fourteen months in a bubble. Now we’d have to expand to include them, and our lives would forever be intertwined in some way.

  Best of all, there were so many Palin daughters! I’m a girl’s girl, and have always felt like everybody’s sister or everybody’s girl next door. And suddenly, there were lots of new young women and little girls for me to make friends with, play with, laugh with. I could take them under my wing, look after them, the way I love looking after my little sister, Bridget. I could show them the ropes. Political rallies and stages and conventions had defined my childhood. (Even in utero: My mother was pregnant with me at the Republican convention in 1984.) Mostly I was excited to share with the Palin girls that wild, we’re-in-this-together feeling of a big campaign.

  Just minutes later, we were onstage—all of us, both families, showing the world what we looked like. It was impossible to guess how the world would react.

  YOU KNOW HOW BEYONCÉ HAS HER ALTER PERSONA, Sasha Fierce? Well, I have one too. After the election, a blogger referred to me as Meggie Mac. And that is what I now call her. For me, she’s the person who comes out on any stage, and talks in interviews. She is lively and polite, energetic and cheerful, and always tries to be great company. When I’m overwhelmed, Meggie Mac is there for me in clutch moments. It’s hard to explain, but comforting to know I can tap into her. I can turn her on, become Meggie Mac, most of the time. And on that day, I thanked God that I could.

  I don’t have illusions about what my real job was on the campaign. I can talk about the blog and my moderate Republican fanbase until I’m blue in the face, but basically, all my job ever was, or would be—even if I became a First Daughter—was to stand up straight (chin up, core tight, it all helps with camera angles), keep a smile on my face, look admiringly at my father, and clap at the appropriate times.

  Being a political prop isn’t easy and it can mess with your mind. There are cameras on you, all the time. The entire traveling press corps stands right in front of you, staring and gawking and judging. You can’t scratch your face or rub your nose. You can’t yawn in boredom, or sit down when your feet start swelling.

  The hardest part for me is seeing how reporters react. They show everything on their faces—much more than they know. Sometimes they don’t bother trying to hide it, as though they stopped seeing you and your family as human beings, or even sentient creatures. After following us around for days, weeks, months, years . . . maybe they stop caring. The funny thing is that they don’t seem to understand that they can become our entertainment as much as we become theirs.

  From the stage, I could see everything that went on—hellooo, you are sitting directly in front of me. The press corps was often assembled on risers or on seats, and quite visible, but they acted as if we never saw them. They would gab on their cell phones and text in front of me. When they were bored, they would do yoga stretches, forward bends, or pick the goo out of their eyes. When they were actually listening, they would shake their heads and roll their eyes at something my father was saying. Unlike the audience members, who sat with open faces and seemed to have open minds, the traveling press corps seemed closed up, not interested, and 100 percent Team Obama, which they made very little effort to conceal.

  Sometimes it ruined my Meggie Mac concentration if I started to think about how shut down they were, and how we couldn’t reach them, ho
w so many of them had already made up their minds that all Republicans are uncool or stupid or elitist or racist or whatever. We were like an ugly traveling circus to them, and a circus they’d seen too much of. They thought we were close-minded.

  They seemed the most close-minded of all.

  After the election was over, I saw a picture on Facebook of a campaign reporter’s laptop screen as it faced out at a sea of stadium seats at a political convention. On the screen of the laptop, in giant letters, were the words “FUCK POLITICS.”

  This was meant to be funny, obviously, and drown us all in irony. I’m sure it can be awful to hear the same speeches over and over, hundreds of times. But isn’t this journalist complaining about having front row seats to history? The more I thought about this picture, the more it bothered me. And sadly, it played into my own fears and insecurities about the media. It pretty much summed up what I already believed the traveling press corps was writing anyway: “Fuck politics!” oh yeah, and “Fuck Republicans!” because we’ve got Obama now, haven’t you heard? He’s going to fix every problem this country has ever had!

  Of course, this made me want to shout and yell and scream. I know that a life in politics requires thick skin, or at least the ability to act as though you are impervious, or insensitive, or simply floating above the fray. But that wouldn’t be me.

  I did have a few tricks, though, for keeping myself collected onstage. I found if I started focusing on one particular reporter—watching him or her intently, and trying to notice every single thing about him or her—I could stay engaged and alert.

  This mental exercise probably sounds boring, but I had ways of making it fascinating. For instance, if there were two reporters who had a thing for each other, and were always flirting, I would focus on them. Usually they made lots of intriguing attempts to cover up the fact that they were attracted to each other, but at the same time, it would be almost impossible for them to be near each other at a rally or anywhere else, without flirting as though they were sitting in a bar.

  I guess it’s natural that I should enjoy turning the tables on people who spend all their time studying my dad and mom and the rest of our family, trying to learn our secrets so they can expose them. And it’s funny that reporters never seemed aware that we paid attention to their behavior—or realized that, as much as gossip from inside the campaign became known to the media, the gossip from the back of the plane made its way to us.

  The romantic antics of one female reporter kept me entertained for months, as I followed the dramatic twists and turns of her flirting, overdrinking, and crazy-sex. If I hadn’t disliked her work so much, I might have felt sorry for her.

  It was witnessing behavior like that, not just between members of the press corps, but inside our campaign as well—moments when I saw people trying to cover up, or hide, or out-and-out lie—that helped me create one of my mottos in life: There are no secrets. Even though it is sometimes the most difficult thing in life, I always try to be up-front and own my shit. If I’m up to something, I talk about it. If I do something stupid or bad, I admit it. There are no secrets. Because one way or another, all things are revealed. I believe that.

  BUT I WANT TO GET BACK TO SARAH PALIN, AND THAT day when I went onstage and stood clapping as my dad announced that he couldn’t wait to “introduce her to Washington, DC.” As much as I was excited by the news of the announcement, and that she was a woman, I felt shaken and troubled. A wave of worry swept over me and I remember thinking, I don’t know anything about this woman and neither does the rest of the country.

  What are her politics really like? Is she ready for this? What went through my head that night, and probably went through yours, were questions and more questions. To be honest, her family didn’t seem ready for what was about to hit them. The original cast from Saturday Night Live (where I once worked) was called “The Not Ready for Prime Time Players.” That’s what the Palins looked like: not ready for prime time. They were so unprepared, in fact, that they were eerily calm, as though oblivious about what would come—the intrusions, distortions, and heat of the spotlight. But, I thought, maybe that’s a good thing. The country was clearly ready for something different and organic and original. Sarah and her family were nothing if not that.

  Was she truly a maverick like my dad? I knew virtually nothing about her, and the more I thought about all the other people who’d been passed over, particularly Joe Lieberman, an icy slap of panic hit me. Who is this person we’ve put so much of our trust in? And please, God, don’t let her have any horrible skeletons in her closet.

  Once the speech was done, and the world had its chance to meet Sarah Palin for the first time, my job was to work the rope line and pose for lots of photographs. This is basically an animated, vocalized version of my onstage role as cardboard political prop. That day, in my Meggie Mac mode, I talked about how excited I was about my father’s campaign and his running mate, and kept my panic to myself.

  After the rope line, we went upstairs—members of both families—for a People magazine shoot that I hadn’t known about. I was a living mess, and feeling worse every second, and barely able to look at my mother. The photographer herded us together, frantically trying to make visual sense of us, but it was a daunting task.

  Later, my mother and I met, hoping to clear the air. We discussed a number of things that troubled both of us—the mysterious selection process, as well as the selection of Sarah herself. I told my mother how blindsided I felt. It was an uncomfortable conversation and, in many ways, opened up more uncomfortable subjects. Over the past fourteen months, I had felt pretty knowledgeable about the inner workings of the campaign. Suddenly I realized that I was pretty naïve and I had been kept in the dark about many things.

  Sarah Palin had been chosen in secret, apparently by the campaign advisers Steve Schmidt, Charlie Black, Mark Salter, and Rick Davis. She had been vetted quickly and when she passed, she had been invited to Sedona, where my family has a ranch—as had all the other potential running mates—to meet my mom and dad.

  After our talk, I felt better about a few things. Namely, I stopped blaming my parents for keeping me in the dark about a decision that was so important, not just to the campaign but to my family personally. I realized it had been truly a collective campaign decision—made by my father and advisers and professionals whom he trusted and liked. I was an outsider, even on my father’s campaign. In some ways, it had been my own choosing. My parents were probably smart to keep me out of the loop. If they had told me about Sarah Palin earlier, I would have discussed it with Shannon and Heather. Like I said, there are no secrets. So don’t tell me one.

  As all of these revelations were sinking in, I began to feel scared in a way that I had never been before—and felt different about the outcome of the election. Before, I had always felt certain that my dad would get the nomination and win. I had never doubted it. But now I was worried. How the Palin selection process and announcement had been handled seemed to highlight things that were innately wrong with our campaign and with the tactics of Steve Schmidt. It was a risky move—one of those things that can wind up being genius or the stupidest decision of all time. More than anything, it seemed like gambling.

  Like my father, I have always been more of a craps girl than a strategic poker player. Actually, roulette is my favorite game. Screw it, I thought. Let’s spin the wheel and see where the ball winds up.

  Chapter 4

  The Birth of Blogette

  When I first joined the campaign, it was hard to get into the pace—or figure out what my role would be. I wanted to find a way to fit in, stay out of trouble, and contribute something of value. The campaign was a small band in those days, a tight group. My real job as a daughter-of was mostly cosmetic and decorative. I was supposed to stand straight, wave, smile, and look nice, but not too nice. (No skin, no bling!) But I wanted to contribute more.

  I’m sure there was some eye-rolling at campaign headquarters when word got out that I wanted to write a
blog. As anybody who’s interned or worked in their mom’s or dad’s office knows, you can get pegged as a raging brat really fast. The smell of entitlement oozes from your skin and follows you around like a cloud, no matter what you do.

  But as serendipity would have it, Rick Davis was running the campaign in those days. Rick is charming—a handsome older-guy type with wire-rim glasses and old-school suits and ties. He always picked up the phone when I called, and laughed at my jokes. He believed in me or, at least, had the good manners to act like it. He cut me some slack, the way my dad always did. And I needed it.

  Let’s face it. As far as politics went, I was hardly a super-skilled professional. I had just graduated from Columbia with a degree in art history, an academic discipline that I love and was serious about in college. I had no experience in fieldwork or political strategy. Aside from my shit detector and gut, which, thank God, were often on target, I knew very little about campaigning.

  But I do have a sixth sense about the Internet, and an ability to combine large amounts of information and create a focused, toned-down segment. I had worked as a paid summer intern for Newsweek magazine and followed a number of blogs. This, combined with the fact that I’m a nonstop extrovert, a people person who loves mingling and gabbing and getting out in the world, a blog that chronicled my days on the campaign—and showed the silliness and madness, as well as the seriousness—seemed like a perfect idea. Sheer genius! Or so I thought.

  My mother loved the idea, became my biggest supporter, and pushed pretty hard for the campaign to let me do it. Once I had agreed to pay for all the costs of the blog, including staff and travel, how could they turn me down? Still, it took convincing and a fair amount of drama and, of course, lawyers had to get involved.

  But I am stubborn, and always have been—and I was determined to make it happen and used voter demographics to argue my case. The audience that I would reach with a blog, or hoped to, was one that all the collected eggheads of my father’s campaign—the strategists and polling experts—had the most trouble with: young moderates and independents. The Republican National Committee had raised and spent millions of dollars on market research, and come up with zillions of ideas about using the Internet, but we had little presence there.