An Apostle of Alaska

With Palin's reference and other recommendations, Wooten got a job as a state trooper. The following year, he married Palin's sister Molly. But the couple broke up in April 2005 and fought a bitter custody battle. Governor Palin, her husband, Todd, and close aides are now embroiled in what has become a public controversy: they're the subject of an official investigation, ordered by the Alaska State Legislature, into allegations that they may have made improper or possibly illegal efforts to get Wooten disciplined, and even fired. (Palin says she is innocent of any wrongdoing.)

Palin herself, before she was governor, sent an e-mail to the uniformed head of the Alaska state police complaining about Wooten's behavior. The message included many allegations: that Wooten drank alcohol excessively, drove drunk, beat his wife, Tasered his 10-year-old stepson, threatened to kill Palin's father and illegally shot a moose. She concluded that the troopers had a "loose cannon on their hands." An internal-affairs investigation found some of the allegations to be true—including that Wooten had Tasered his stepson (at the boy's request, Wooten said, and in "a training capacity" that wasn't a full charge). But other lurid allegations, including wife beating, were dismissed. Wooten was penalized with 10 days of unpaid leave, later reduced to five. (In an interview last week with CNN, Wooten said he "made mistakes" and was "punished appropriately." "I'm trying to move on and be the best dad I can to my children," he said, adding that McCain's choice of Palin was "absolutely wonderful for the state of Alaska.")

But the acrimonious custody squabbles continued. Then two things happened: Palin was elected governor, and the police union opened negotiations with the new administration lobbying for more funding. The Wooten controversy resurfaced in Palin's first security briefing, when the head of the governor's bodyguard unit asked if she and Todd were aware of any threats. They mentioned Wooten. Later, Palin and her husband allegedly contacted Public Safety director and state police supervisor Walter Monegan. According to Monegan's account, as told to The Washington Post, Todd Palin met with him in January 2007. Todd asked Monegan to re-examine the Wooten affair, and Monegan said the matter was closed. Then Sarah herself called Monegan on his cell phone; according to his account, he repeated what he had told Todd: no deal.

In a telephone conversation on Feb. 29 of this year, recorded by state police, one of the governor's top aides raised the Wooten issue yet again. Frank Bailey noted to a senior police official that there had been tensions between the union and the Palin campaign. "I know we're not supposed to hold grudges and I don't think the governor does, but those around her certainly remember," Bailey said. He then denounced Wooten, and complained that the governor and her husband had heard nothing on that case except "stay away, there's nothing we can do … And that's very frustrating because, you know … this guy is the ultimate poor recruiting model."

The issue became a serious public controversy only in July, when Palin fired Monegan. She maintains that the firing was due to policy differences and says that she never pressured him regarding Wooten; he has claimed otherwise. Palin subsequently released the tape of Bailey's conversation, which she says she did not instigate. Unanimously, a bipartisan panel of legislators voted to hire a former prosecutor to investigate whether Palin used her power inappropriately to settle a private score.

The investigation was due to wrap up a few days before the presidential election. But after Palin was nominated, Democratic legislator Hollis French—who supervises the investigation—moved the deadline to Oct. 10. Then a McCain ally last week sought to derail the probe altogether, saying French had "politicized" it by suggesting it could amount to an "October surprise." A McCain campaign spokesman endorsed the move: "An investigation that was supposed to be nonpartisan has become a political circus and has gotten out of control," said Taylor Griffin.

From early in her career, Palin got ahead by working the system as well if not better than others. She hired a Washington lobbyist and won $27 million in earmarks for tiny Wasilla. Then she worked to get big federal money for the state. Though she now says she stood up to those who wanted to build the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere" (which actually involved two bridges), she was once a strong supporter. Responding to a questionnaire in 2006, Palin said she wanted the projects done "sooner rather than later … while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." At the time, another prominent politician had called people living in the area of one of the proposed projects "valley trash." That gave Palin an opening. Campaigning in the area, she used some of her trademark humor to make her pitch: "OK, you've got valley trash standing here in the middle of nowhere," she declared to residents of Ketchikan. "I think we're going to make a good team as we progress [with] that bridge."

As Alaskan corruption scandals grew, and the Bridge to Nowhere became synonymous with out-of-control federal spending, Palin switched positions. In an astonishing pivot, she began using the rhetoric of the projects' opponents. Now she talks as if she always opposed the funding. She used one of her stock lines in her nomination acceptance speech: "I told the Congress, 'Thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

In Juneau, Palin has given jobs to friends and appointed lobbyists to oversee industries they used to represent. There's nothing illegal about it—that's business as usual in politics. But part of Palin's appeal is that she markets herself as a reformer who fights against cronyism, when in fact her record shows her to be, in many ways, a typical politician who rewards her friends and punishes her enemies.