Squad of G.O.P. Aides Prepares Palin for Interviews

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/us/politics/11palin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Squad of G.O.P. Aides Prepares Palin for Interviews


By JIM RUTENBERG and MONICA DAVEY
Published: September 10, 2008
Two weeks ago, People magazine was granted an exclusive interview with Senator John McCain’s new running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, who spoke about motherhood and career, life in Alaska and the historic nature of her candidacy.

She has not given an interview since, eschewing the traditional television news circuit traveled by a vice-presidential nominee.

Ms. Palin will break that news media blackout on Thursday, when she will begin two days of interviews by the ABC News anchor Charles Gibson.

The sessions could be the first test of Ms. Palin’s ability to parry substantive questions on foreign and domestic policy, and as she flew back to Alaska on Wednesday, she brought with her a squad of Mr. McCain’s top policy advisers to help her prepare. In a broader sense, the interviews will also provide fresh material for what is now an intense war between the campaigns to define Ms. Palin in the public mind, a battle that both campaigns consider potentially critical to the election outcome.

“The fight is over how she is going to be defined in the eyes of the American public,” said Terry Nelson, Mr. McCain’s former campaign manager. “She’s been introduced, but all the information about her has not been introduced, and once that information comes to light people are going to draw conclusions about her, and the campaigns are fighting to shape the conclusions.”

With new reports coming out daily about Ms. Palin’s record in Alaska, and a more aggressive offensive from Senator Barack Obama’s campaign, Mr. McCain’s team has issued a partywide, all-hands-on-deck.

It has hired several veterans from President Bush’s campaigns, making them part of a team dedicated to defending Ms. Palin from unsubstantiated Internet rumors, Democratic attacks and potentially damaging news reports about her record produced by the investigative journalists now in Alaska.

“She’s a dynamic agent for change, the Democrats recognize this, and there is this race now to paint a picture of her which is not true,” said Brian Jones, who resigned as Mr. McCain’s communications director in 2007 but returned this week to help in the effort to bolster Ms. Palin.

Mr. McCain’s campaign released an advertisement on Wednesday accusing Mr. Obama of trying “to destroy” Ms. Palin, and featuring images of scavenging wolves and an assertion that Democratic operatives are researching Ms. Palin in Alaska. (The advertisement cited a report by FactCheck.org that was critical of “completely false” attacks on Ms. Palin, but failed to note that the report was referring to Internet rumors not linked to Mr. Obama’s campaign.)

The McCain campaign is regularly battling reports from news organizations that have the potential to undermine the image that it has presented of Ms. Palin as a reformer.

On Wednesday, a new report on Politico.com detailed Ms. Palin’s requests for federal appropriations as governor, including money for studies on the mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbor seals, the very sorts of pet spending projects Mr. McCain has lampooned.

Mr. McCain’s campaign has dispatched another team to Alaska to respond more rapidly to such reports. It is headed by Taylor Griffin, who had worked for President Bush’s 2004 campaign. Another former Bush campaign aide, Tracey Schmitt, is now Ms. Palin’s traveling press secretary.

Tucker Eskew, a veteran of Mr. Bush’s primary season campaign against Mr. McCain, has been advising Ms. Palin this week, as she has hopped between S.U.V.s and planes, all the while reading briefing materials or receiving tutorials from policy advisers who have dipped on and off the campaign trail to visit with her.

On Wednesday night, three of them were on the plane to Alaska with Ms. Palin: Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Mr. McCain’s economic adviser; Steve Biegun, a former staff member of Mr. Bush’s National Security Council who has taken leave from his Ford Motors job to advise Ms. Palin; and Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.

Also accompanying Ms. Palin to Alaska as she prepared for her interview was Nicolle Wallace, a communications director for Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign and, later, his White House. Ms. Wallace’s husband, Mark Wallace, Mr. Bush’s deputy campaign manager in 2004, is helping prepare Ms. Palin for the debates.

For now, the preparation for the debate and the sessions with Mr. Gibson are one and the same. Aides have developed a set of presumed questions and answers that they are walking Ms. Palin through.

Aides traveling with Ms. Palin have reported back to associates that she is a fast study — asking few questions of her policy briefers but quickly repeating back their main points — who already has considerable ease and experience before cameras.

A former aide in Alaska who had helped prepare Ms. Palin for her campaign debates there said she had a talent for distilling information into digestible sound bites. The aide said she generally prefers light preparatory materials to heavy briefing books, and prefers walking through potential questions and answers with aides to holding mock sessions

 

so basically they are coaching her to deal with all the questions about her ethics problems as well as her record distortions she has made. smart thing to do by the republicans - prevent her from making any foolish remarks.

hopefully an interviewer will be able to throw her off and ask her something she hasn't been preped for to get a real sincere response from her.