Sarah Palin, not such an outsider after all

Ever since Sarah Palin was introduced as John McCain's surprise choice for running mate in late August, she has billed herself as the ultimate outsider - the perfect antidote to the conventional VP choice. "I'm certainly a Washington outsider and I'm proud of that," she told Fox News recently. But an article by Jane Mayer in this week's New Yorker suggests that Palin actually owes more to members of the Washington elite than she lets on - and that for some time she has aspired to join that elite.

Mayer claims that Palin began establishing links with Washington as early as 1996 when she first became mayor of Wasilla. Palin personally oversaw the hiring of a Washington law firm to represent the interests of the small Alaskan town. It resulted in Wasilla securing $27m in federal funding - and gave the mayor her first taste of what a little insider influence in the capital can bring.

In 2007, soon after she was elected Governor of Alaska, Palin learned that a number of prominent conservative pundits were due to pass through Juneau, capital of Alaska, on separate cruises sponsored by two right-wing magazines, the Weekly Standard and National Review. Writers and editors on both cruises were swiftly invited to the Governor's mansion where - despite her recent mocking of "the mainstream media" - she proved an entertaining and engaging hostess.

One of the pundits who came on the first boat, Fred Barnes of Fox News, recalled being "struck by how smart Palin was, and how unusually confident. Maybe because she had succeeded at almost everything she had done". He also noticed that she was"“exceptionally pretty".

On the same trip was William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and a regular on Fox News Sunday. As a result, according to Mayer, he became Palin's most ardent promoter. On June 29, two months before McCain chose her as his running mate, Kristol predicted on Fox News Sunday that "McCain's going to put Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, on the ticket". He described her as "fantastic" and even suggested she could go one-on-one with Obama in a game of basketball.

The conservative historian Victor Davis Hanson, one of the party aboard the National Review cruise, was another man smitten. "She has that aura that Clinton, Reagan and Jack Kennedy had - magnetism that comes through much more strongly when you're in the same room," he said after a reception at the Governor's mansion.

Mayer claims that it was the political consultant Dick Morris who, at the same reception, offered Palin some advice. Seeing her potential as an outsider, he warned her that outsiders tend to become insiders as soon as they get into power and that she should not let that happen. "If you want to be successful," he said, "you have to stay an outsider."

Mayer recounts that when Morris, Hanson and co left the mansion to return to their cruise ship, Palin was sad to see them go. Hanson recalled that she said, "Hey - does anyone want to stay for dinner? We're going to eat right now." She also invited everyone to come back the next day. "If any of you are in the area, all you have to do is knock, yell upstairs, I'll be right down."

How McCain came to pick Palin: the New Yorker article in full

FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 24, 2008