More Gossip from a Disillusioned Palin Aide

Caitlin Dickson

Last Friday, The Anchorage Daily News--along with a good chunk of the political press corps in Alaska--got their hands on a 500-page unpublished manuscript by Frank Bailey, a former aide to Sarah Palin who grew disillusioned with his boss. Bailey, who wrote the book with two co-authors, worked on Palin's 2006 gubernatorial campaign and stayed on as part of her "inner circle" during her 2008 vice presidential run. The book comes with all sorts of caveats--it's not yet published, there's been no outside verifcation, and Palin has yet to comment--but these are the new nuggets that Palin obsessives are digesting: 

  • Palin may have violated Alaska's state election law by collaborating with the Republican Governor's Association on a campaign ad. "State candidates can't team up with soft-money groups such as the Republican Governor's Association, which paid for TV commericials and mailers in Alaska during the election in a purported 'independent' effort," the Anchorage Daily News' Sean Cockerham and Kyle Hopkins explain.

  • Bailey claims he was "recruited" by Palin's husband, Todd, to take down Mike Wooten, a fire trooper who was engaged in a child custody battle with Palin's sister, his ex-wife. According to Bailey, "Todd Palin kept feeding him information on Wooten, which he passed on to troopers." Bailey also asserts that the selection of Superior Court Judge Morgan Christen as one of the top two judges considered for Supreme Court appointment by the governor was directly influenced by Christen's ruling against Wooten in the custody fight with Palin's sister.

  • Palin supposedly abandoned a commitment to work with the Alaska Family Council to promote a ballot initiative outlawing abortions for teens because she was working on her book. In the manuscript, Bailey writes that this was the final straw, as he had realized Palin was motivated primarily by the prospect of making money.

  • Bailey claims that the campaign trail revealed Palin's widespread support was less than genuine. Bailey recalls, "we set our sights and went after opponents in coordinated attacks, utilizing what we called 'Fox News surrogates,' friendly blogs, ghost-written op-eds, media opinion polls (that we often rigged), letters to editors, and carefully edited speeches."