King: 'Going Rogue' reignites Palin divide, even in her hometown/Former McCain aides angrily deny Palin allegation about vetting costs

King: 'Going Rogue' reignites Palin divide, even in her hometown
By John King, CNN Chief National Correspondent
Copyright by CNN News
November 13, 2009 12:29 p.m. EST
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/12/sotu.king.alaska/



Store owner Shannon Cullip on Sarah Palin: "People either completely ... have her on a pedestal or don't like her."


Editor's note: On CNN's "State of the Union," host and chief national correspondent John King goes outside the Beltway to report on issues affecting communities across the country.

Wasilla, Alaska (CNN) -- At Pandemonium Booksellers, the Sarah Palin 2010 calendars are hot sellers, and since the election, the traffic in political books has been decidedly to the right.

"Glenn Beck outsells President Obama at the moment?" is our question as owner Shannon Cullip leads us on a tour of the bookstore.

"Oh yeah," she responds with a laugh. "Big time."

In the window, there is a small Wasilla Chamber of Commerce sticker and an image of the town's famous mayor-turned-governor-turned-GOP vice presidential nominee.

"Going Rogue" is shattering the presale record at Pandemonium Booksellers and reigniting the Palin political divide, even here in her hometown.

"It's either one extreme or the other, I would say," Cullip says of the bookstore's Palin conversations. "I would say people either completely, completely have her on a pedestal or don't like her. Not too much in the middle.

"You will have some people -- 'She's just such an amazing woman' ... 'Can't believe what she has accomplished' and that sort of thing," Cullip said. "The flip side: 'I can't stand her,' you know."

Palin's fast political rise has been good for business: Books on Palin's tenure as governor are in the Alaska section; Obama's "Audacity of Hope" is among the titles in the politics section.

"And during the election, you would find people bought both, they were comparing," Cullip says.

In Wasilla and across Alaska, most believe Palin has future -- and national -- political ambitions, and there is considerable curiosity about what she might say in the new book.

Among those near certain to get a mention is Gov. Sean Parnell, who was lieutenant governor until Palin's abrupt resignation in July.

"I can really say nothing except that I wish her the best because she treated me and her fellow Alaskans so well and looked out for us so well," Parnell told CNN in a recent interview at the governor's office in Anchorage.

"Do you as governor pick up the phone at all and say, you know, 'This is a tough one, let me seek her advice?' " we asked.
"We keep in touch on a personal basis," Parnell said. "I haven't, we haven't, had the policy consults or anything, but we keep in touch."

"You going to read the book?"

"Of course I am going to read the book."

There are plenty of Palin critics in her state. "Impeach Palin" signs are still visible at a downtown Anchorage lot that is a warehouse of sorts for outdoor advertisements.

Not so harsh, but still careful when the subject of Palin comes up, is the state's junior U.S. senator, Mark Begich, who knew Palin from his days as Anchorage mayor.

"I don't know what her future is going to be," Begich said in an interview at an Anchorage waterfront park. "I'll let the public make that decision."

The same question we put to the governor: "Are you going to read the book?"

Said Begich: "Uh, I don't know, you know, I've got so many other, I've got a health care bill to read."

Fireside Books is in Palmer, a town just a short drive from Wasilla. It normally opens at 10 a.m., but owner David Cheezem is planning to open the doors at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday when "Going Rogue" hits the stands.

"I expect people will be lining up and knocking on the door," Cheezem said. "Sarah Palin fans are not the most patient people in the world -- they want it now."

Like Cullip at Pandemonium, Cheezem said the political debate about Palin tends to be black and white -- "Not many people in the middle about her," Cheezem said.

Her sudden selection as Sen. John McCain's running mate had a personal impact on Cheezem. He is a Democrat and decided to make a run for a state House seat last year on the calculation that local Republicans seemed a bit demoralized.

"The thought was, you know, the Republicans aren't all that excited about John McCain -- I might be able to get some votes here, where otherwise I wouldn't," Cheezem said.

"And then she came in and ran for vice president, and at that point, there was just no way," he said with a whimsical smile. "I lost dramatically."

"You don't seem to hold that against her too much?"

"No. No. No," Cheezem told us. "Not if she sells a bunch of books here."





Former McCain aides angrily deny Palin allegation about vetting costs
By Michael D. Shear
Copyright by the Washington Post
Thursday, November 12, 2009; 6:52 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/12/AR2009111209502.html?wpisrc=newsletter


Top operatives for Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign angrily rejected Thursday a charge in Sarah Palin's new book that the former Alaska governor was charged $50,000 for the cost of vetting her as a vice presidential candidate last year.

"Absolutely false. Totally fanciful," one senior McCain adviser said after hearing of the allegation, which was first reported by the Associated Press. The news organization said it purchased a copy of the book, "Going Rogue," which does not go on sale until Tuesday.

In the book, according to the AP, Palin writes that, when she approached the McCain campaign to pay for the vetting bill, she was told that it would have paid the bill only if the Republican ticket had won the presidency.

That conversation never happened, a senior McCain official said. Speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak for his former campaign colleagues, the official said that the bills were for defending Palin against ethics charges in Alaska unrelated to the campaign.

"These are legal bills from Troopergate and other investigations. Nothing to do with the campaign," he said. "It's not true."

McCain officials had braced for weeks for disclosures from the Palin book, fearing that she would use it to lodge new, explosive charges against the McCain campaign and its top operatives. But as recently as this week, former senior aides to McCain had expressed a desire not to be dragged into a back-and-forth with Palin, the former governor and vice presidential candidate. They declined Thursday night to respond broadly to the book, saying they wanted only to correct the factual mistake about the $50,000.

The AP reported Thursday that Palin takes several shots in the book at the media, including CBS anchor Katie Couric, and the McCain campaign officials she described as keeping her "bottled up" during the campaign.
ad_icon

She accuses Couric of "badgering" her during what was widely thought to be a terrible interview that made her look poorly informed and politically inexperienced, the AP reported.

Palin resigned as governor of Alaska earlier this year to write the book, which was co-authored with Lynn Vincent. A book tour to promote its publication begins next week, although Palin appeared Thursday on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to discuss it.

In the book, according to the AP, Palin assails the McCain operatives, writing that they overly managed her and limited her access to reporters. Stories of the conflict between Palin and her McCain-hired handlers have been told before, since the finger-pointing days just after last November's Election Day.

Palin writes that she was surprised by all the clothes and jewelry that she was given during the campaign, and was told that it was "part of the convention," the AP reported. She says she rewrote the early statement about her daughter's pregnancy, only to see the campaign's version distributed to the media.

The former governor also had harsh words for the news media, and especially the network anchors who interviewed her.

Of former ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson, Palin writes that he was "bored" by substantive issues, according to the AP. And she writes that Couric suffers from "low self esteem" and that Palin began to feel sorry for her.

A senior McCain adviser laughed at that notion Thursday night, saying that he was going to have to call Couric to buck her up.

A spokeswoman for McCain's Senate office, Brooke Buchanan, declined to comment. A former campaign aide said the senator has no idea what's in the book and has long since moved on from the campaign and the loss to Barack Obama.