Palin and Aides Felt Snubbed by McCain in Early 2008

Detroit Free Press/ZUMA Press

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In 2008, months before John McCain would pick Sarah Palin to be his running mate, the Alaska governor and her crew felt snubbed by the Arizona senator, according to Palin emails recently released by Alaska in response to an open records request filed by Mother Jones, other news  organizations, and citizen activists.

A second batch of emails released this week by the state covers the last ten months of Palin’s self-abbreviated tenure as governor. But the batch also includes emails left out of the first round of emails made public last year. Several of those emails—full of redactions—refer to efforts of the 2008 Republican presidential contenders to court Palin in advance of the Alaska caucuses, which were held on February 5 that year.

In an email sent that day to Sean Parnell, then the lieutenant governor, Palin noted,

Talked to Romney today! Thank you for hooking that up. Can’t believe he took to the time. Talked to him about women in leadership. He said all the right things.

In a separate email to several of her aides and her husband Todd, Palin reported on her conversation with the former Massachusetts governor:

Romney called. Said good things just like Huck [as in Mike Huckabee, who was also running for the GOP presidential nomination].

In response one of the aides, Kris Perry, wrote back: “Did you ever hear from mccain?”

Palin had a one-word reply: “No.”

Perry responded: “Well, I haven’t been impressed and this is just icing on my cake.”

Palin emailed back: “Yeah, it’s good to know. He’s probably written off AK anyway.”

Alaska ended up not being kind to McCain. He placed fourth in the caucuses there, picking up just three delegates to Mitt Romney’s 12, Huckabee’s six, and Ron Paul’s five. But when he needed a veep nominee half-a-year later, he didn’t hold this against Palin. Nor did she maintain a grudge.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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