Standing up to the Bad Old Boys

Going Rogue
By Sarah Palin
Harper $28.99 (£18.99)

In retrospect, Barack Obama’s first book, Dreams From My Father, can be seen as an important building block in his ascent to the presidency. It was published in 1995, when he was unknown, and only became a best-seller nine years later after his riveting speech to the Democratic party’s convention. But it served to introduce him to the American public.

Sarah Palin, last year’s Republican vice-presidential candidate, needs no such introduction. Her debut in hard cover, Going Rogue, a pre-publication phenomenon, is nakedly intended to launch her into the stratosphere where only presidents, talk show hosts and other mega-celebrities float far above earth.

Those who already love her will love the book and those who don’t will not. This makes it hard for any reviewer trying to be reasonably objective. I approached it in the spirit of seeing if there were things about her I did not already know or suspect.

There is no reason to doubt she is a good and devoted mother and, now, grandmother. She appears sincere about her religion and has not used it for cynical political purposes. God appears on page one, in a quote from a football coach, and in the final paragraph. Her life, all its ups and downs, conforms to God’s will or God’s plan for her. Many Americans think like that.

The hypothetical problem is that the US constitution separates church and state, a problem if, however improbably, she becomes president. It is also troubling to have confirmed that she subscribes to creationism, although she calls it “micro-evolution”, rather than the empirical science underpinning Darwin.

The book has no index, so it is hard to annotate all the conservative touchstones she uses. Suffice to say, it is partly dedicated to the US military (a soldier son justifies that), the right-to-life movement is introduced on the second page and Ronald Reagan appears on the third and many times thereafter. She also likes literary references – Pascal and Plato in one paragraph early on – almost as if disguising an intellectual inferiority complex by frequent recourse to Bartlett’s Dictionary of Quotations (that could be the ghostwriter’s work).

But all this is familiar territory. As a political junkie who can find even municipal bond issues interesting, I wanted to know what her experience was really like at governing, in Wasilla, Alaska, where she became mayor, and in Juneau, the state capital. I would have liked to hear how this would have affected her being in the national government, just a heartbeat away from the presidency with an old man in the Oval Office.

All that emerges, however, is one constant refrain. It is all about Good Sarah, who is always right, and the Bad Old Boys – even, gosh darn it, some Republicans – always out to frustrate and denigrate her. That was the case in Wasilla and Juneau, which she likens to Washington, DC, as if she could reform it by her will alone (fat chance, as Mr Obama is discovering). It was so in spades on the campaign with John McCain and again back in Alaska after the election, prompting her, she says, to quit the governorship in frustration. More likely, she was not going to stay down on the farm after seeing Paree.

The score settling with the BOBs (and some girls) around McCain and in the national media may have Washington a-twitter but it is actually one of the most boring passages in the 400 pages. Her nemeses, Schmidt, Davis, the Wallaces and many more, are just campaign apparatchiks. If they win elections and get into government, they may properly command attention (Carville with Clinton, Rove with Bush, Axelrod with Obama) but to focus all ire on them simply becomes irritating.

Still, it was the BOBs who first let it be known that the vice-presidential candidate was straying off message – going rogue – hence her book’s title. She does not go quite so far as to claim that if she had been left alone, she would have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat for the Republican ticket but if the reader wants to think that, then fine by her.

Rush Limbaugh, the rightwing radio ranter, has pronounced Going Rogue “one of the most substantive policy books I have read”, which suggests he is not a bibliophile. Andy Borowitz, the liberal wit, wickedly spoofed that Sarah Palin “is looking forward to reading her book”. These comments encapsulate the extent to which she divides America.

At least it is a cheap read, in more ways than one. One bookstore chain is selling it at a 30-40 per cent discount and it was flying off the shelves. Whether it propels her into the stratosphere is another matter entirely.

The writer was twice the FT Washington bureau chief