With only a few days left before HBO’s portrayal of Sarah Palin will be aired, Big Hollywood secured an exclusive interview with Joy Biedermann Little, a former Palin aide who worked for the former Governor in the Department of Natural Resources. The Act involved the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act (ANILCA), federal legislation passed in 1980, which created 15 national parks or protected areas.
According to Little, many of the rumors circulating on the Internet that Palin wanted to leave the state do not accurately reflect the dedication and love the former Governor had for Alaska and her devotion to protecting state’s rights for her people.
On February 23, the Washington Post published an article titled, “E-mails show Palin wanted to leave Alaska governor’s job months before she resigned,” but the story details that it was actually the constant, harassing e-mails and ethics complaints that made Palin reconsider her job. Rumors began circulating in 2010 that the Palins wanted to leave Alaska because they had become disenchanted with the state itself. On December 27, 2010 one PopEater gossip piece wrote:
Both Sarah and Bristol are millionaires and have had enough of Alaska,” a dancing friend (Dancing With the Stars) of Bristol’s tells me. “After spending so much time in Los Angeles it doesn’t surprise me at all that they are looking to move. Both were always raving about the sunshine and the fact you didn’t need a sun bed to get a suntan. I think Alaska has taken Sarah about as far as it can and now its time for her to move to the next state that can help her get the one thing she wants so much. To be president of all 50 states one day.
But Little says that’s not a fair and accurate portrayal of the Governor, that Palin loved Alaska and that any moments the former governor may have had about relocating was a perfectly natural feeling many Alaskans have because the winters can be brutally harsh. Here’s what Little had to say about her former boss and the 2008 Vice-Presidential nominee of the Republican Party:
What do you think about the rumors that circulated that Governor Palin did not love Alaska?
I think it’s hogwash. The reality is that people will have their own perceptions real or otherwise. This winter, for instance, has been a horrible winter. Everyone here sometimes talks about going somewhere else because the winters are rough, but she was an outdoors person, she hunted and fished, but you usually do that in the fall. I don’t believe that [she didn’t love Alaska] for a minute, but if her love affair with Alaska ended, I wouldn’t blame her because it’s not for everyone, but do I think she’s loyal to the state and people Alaska, I do. Not once did she falter from supporting for state’s rights issues.
What do you think of the “Game Change” implication that Palin cost McCain the presidential election in 2008?
Personally, I was raised in Arizona and I lived in Alaska so I’m pretty familiar with both politicians. I personally think she invigorated the campaign in the beginning but people did whatever they could to dig up everything they could on her … look at the Republican process now, could we beat one another up anymore? They took her and tried to tear her apart. McCain was never as strong of a candidate as he could be … his time had really come and gone. McCain was moderate and she was conservative. If anything she got the conservative base to the polls. People blamed her experience, but President Obama didn’t have any more experience. McCain had light years more experience than Obama, but the election was never about McCain and Obama. Instead the election became about Presidential Candidate Obama to Vice-Presidential Candidate Palin. It was messed up from the beginning. Politics has become about let’s chew up em’ and spit em’ out and she became a casualty of that. She did a great job for this state and she was phenomenal Governor.
If Palin loved Alaska so much, why did she resign from office as Governor?
She only resigned because she couldn’t get anything done with the legislature after McCain chose her has his running mate. The ethics complaints and the e-mails requested were overwhelming for the state. She’s only human as well, if we expect our politicians to be perfect we’re going to be sadly disappointed. They’re not going to be perfect. Do I think that what they did to her was fair? No. It’s like what they did to President Bush. Frankly, I even think some of the garbage going on about President Obama isn’t fair. This movie tells me that Sarah Palin is still a force to be reckoned with and they’re concerned she still has a lot of political clout and power. If she ran for Governor again, I’d vote for her. I have no reservations about how she operated and how she ran the state. We’ve forgotten what a documentary is, these things are no longer truthful. Don’t sell it as something truthful when you know it’s not.
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