The Palin Project - 2006

2008-09-06 Mike Amundsen

I was curious and bored this evening. So I did something I've never done before. I followed up a hunch and did some 'Google-ing' on a simple theory - that Sarah Palin's nomination for Republican Vice Presidential candidate did not come out of nowhere. That it was, in fact, a long-term project by a small team of determined, savvy political operators.

I was a bit surprised by what I found - and how easily and quickly I found it.

I've been sitting on this for about 48 hours - waiting for someone else to bring this up. MSM, blogger, campaign leak, whatever. But I've seen nothing. My story has some leaps in it, but I think it's essentially sound. I bet someone with real journalistic skills and a bit of time on their hands could put together a more concrete version of this same tale. But I'm just a geek who spent about an hour online searching w/ Google and found these loose threads that seemed to come from the same bolt of cloth.

Conspiracy theory? Manchurian Candidate? Idle fiction? You decide.

Council for National Policy

Soon after Sarah Palin was tapped by the McCain campaign as the republican VP nominee, I found a link to an Op-Ed piece by Max Blumenthal (Secretive Right-Wing Group Vetted Palin) reporting that, at a meeting of the Council for National Policy in St. Paul the week before the Republican Convention, Sarah Palin was apparently 'vetted' for the VP spot. The piece is vague on details. Did they meet to get to know her? Did they meet to tell McCain's team "this is your new VP"? No clues. I note that the piece puts forward the idea that this group was meeting over Palin days before she was apparently offered the job by John McCain.

It does seem likely that McCain's campaign would want to get an endorsement from this group. The list of CNP Board members (past/present) reads like a Who's Who" of right-wing politics. I'll note the following for now: Dr. James Dobson, Donald Paul Hodel, Thomas L. Phillips. There are others including Grover Norquist, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye, etc. You get the idea.

Adam Brickley

I first found Adam Brickley (as of this writing no authoritative wiki article [wow]) through some random Google search regarding Sarah Palin. Not sure of the first reference, but his Palin for VP blog goes back quite a ways. He's been touting Palin for VP since early 2007. Seemed pretty odd to me. A college kid from Colorado Springs starts a blog from his mom's house (maybe the basement?) and touts the newly elected, almost unknown, religious conservative governor of Alaska for VP. Is the kid that interested in (Alaskan) politics? Maybe. I passed it over.

Then I saw Adam featured in a segment of The Colbert Report. Nice kid. Had that "big-toe-in-the-sand" thing going for him. Cute. But he said "we" several times in the interview and I didn't think it was meant figuratively. I decided something was up. So I did some digging.

Phillips Foundation

In 2006, Adam Brickley was awarded the The Phillips Foundation's Ronald Reagan College Leaders Scholarship. Not long after that, he launched his Draft Sarah Palin for VP blog (Why Sarah Palin? - 2007-02-26).

So I check out the Phillips Foundation Trustees. Names include Thomas L. Phillips, Alfred S. Regnery, and Donald P. Hodel among others. Yep, recognize them, too.

As an aside, the Phillips Foundation spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in scholarships for "campus activists who are in the forefront of the battle against "political correctness" and ideological conformity on campus." I wonder if any of the other recipients started a blog to promote a candidate for higher office. Might be an interesting research project.

Focus on the Family

This week I found a story in the Rock Mountain News (Palin no stranger to Focus on the Family) that said "[I]t was when she beat Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski in the 2006 primary that [Achorage attorney] Clarkson got a call from Focus on the Family asking him questions about the strength of [Palin's] social conservative credentials." I also suspect her decision to introduce 'Intelligent Design' as a campaign issue in her gubernatorial election also caught the attention of those on the right.

I noticed another interesting link between Palin and Dobson's Focus on the Family. Albert Mohler (his bio indicates he's on the board of Focus on the Family) posted a piece in May 2008 featuring Palin's new-born son, Trig. Here's a curious quote from the article: "A high school basketball star and beauty queen, she was elected Alaska's governor in 2006. She is often mentioned as a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain." Really, in May of 2008 - "often mentioned"? Huh.

So...

I'm stitching things together, but here's my assertion. The selection of Sarah Palin for VP was a long-term, well thought out project. That Dobson and others on the right sensed early on (i.e. 2006) that it was unlikely that a 'true conservative' candidate for president could survive a long, bruising primary season. And, instead, they hatched a plan to get one of their own appointed to the VP slot. To that end, Adam Brickley was selected as the front-man for the campaign to build up the right's "chosen one" - Sarah Palin. Finally, I suspect that once John McCain sewed up the nomination he had no choice but to accept Palin to the ticket if he was to get the support of the religious right in the fall election.

There. I put it out there. Feel free to leave your comments.

2008-09-06 Mike Amundsen