The Palin Problem

Her isolation in recent weeks has taken a toll, and she has been hungry for company. It has been difficult for Palin to be isolated from her friends not only by distance, but also electronically. Palin's Yahoo account was hacked into in mid-September and messages between her and friends were posted online. (In one such message, a colleague tells Palin not to let the negative press get to her.) Wasilla friend Kristan Cole says that in the initial days after Palin was picked she regularly communicated with Palin via e-mail. That stopped after the hacking incident. The women have always talked electronically. "You can do it on the go and respond at 2 o'clock in the morning, and with all the time changes that was the best way to communicate." Since Palin's account was hacked into, Cole has not sent her a single e-mail or received one from her. "I'm more gun-shy, because when you've had the relationship we have had—my son was in a critical car accident, and working through all that and her family and Trig—it's made me hesitant to say anything very personal [via e-mail], and that's sad."

A turning point came last week, when Kris Perry returned to Palin's immediate orbit. Perry, who worked as her scheduler, was stuck in Anchorage for the past month, waiting to see if she would be deposed in the ongoing "Troopergate" investigation. Only on the Friday before the Thursday debate, after a delay in the investigation, did Perry feel able to leave town and fly south. (Troopergate could make headlines again this Friday, when a special counsel is due to issue his report on the matter.) It was Perry who helped Palin relax and regain her footing prior to last Thursday night's debate.

Sealing Palin off from Perry, whom she met when both were in the hospital giving birth to their children six years ago (in Palin's case it was her fourth, daughter Piper), was a mistake, say those in Palinworld. Next to Todd, says one former aide who did not want to be named discussing sensitive personnel matters, Perry was the person most responsible for "creating a sense of peace around Sarah." Despite recent media reports of a wild temper, those who know Palin say she is more prone to anxiety and frantic overdrive than tantrums. "She's the world's worst multitasker," says the aide. "She'll have a cell phone in one hand, the BlackBerry in the other while she is reading two position papers. You have to tell her prior to the debate, 'Put that down, breathe deep.' They [the McCain staff] are not going to know that."

What Palin knows, and what the country knows about her, is an issue for the next few weeks. Barack Obama is not the Messiah, and Biden is no Simon Peter, but it stretches credulity to say that Obama is no more qualified to be president than Palin is. Though you may prefer McCain-Palin to Obama-Biden, there is not the same threshold question about the Democrats that is now being asked about Palin.

Sitting with her for part of the Couric interview, McCain implicitly compared Palin to Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, saying that they, too, had been caricatured and dismissed by mainstream voices. The linkages are untenable. For all of his manifold sins, Clinton was a longtime governor, and George H.W. Bush's attacks on his qualifications failed for a reason: people may not have respected Clinton's character, but they did not doubt the quality of his mind. A successful two-term governor of California, Reagan had spent decades immersed in politics (of both the left and the right) before running for president. He did like to call himself a citizen-politician, and Lord knows he had an occasionally ambiguous relationship with facts, but he was a serious man who had spent a great deal of time thinking about the central issues of the age. To put it kindly, Palin, however promising a governor she is, has not done similar work.

I could be wrong. Perhaps Sarah Palin will somehow emerge from the hurly-burly of history as a transformative figure who was underestimated in her time by journalists who could not see, or refused to acknowledge, her virtues. But do I think I am right in saying that Palin's populist view of high office—hey, Vice President Six-Pack, what should we do about Pakistan?—is dangerous? You betcha.

With Holly Bailey, Karen Breslau, Suzanne Smalley, Michael Isikoff and Sarah Kliff

© 2008