Gov. Sarah Palin (flickr)

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made lemonade out of lemons today by auctioning off on the Internet the fancy wardrobe purchased for her failed vice-presidential run, and raking in more than a million dollars — which she immediately donated to the Needy Governors’ Winter Clothing Fund.

The feisty four-eyed political phenomenon evidently doesn’t plan to stop there: Papers have reportedly been filed for a new corporation specifically meant to cash in on her sudden fame with myriad money-making projects.

For example, hubby Todd will be scooping up snow from the lawn of the Palin house in Wasilla, Alaska, and molding it into souvenir “genuine Alaska Toddballs” to be sold for $10 apiece to spectators at January’s Washington inauguration ceremonies to throw at President Barack Obama.

Black Ice, a consulting arm, will specialize in personal vendettas, using covert ops to go after in-laws, friends, employees -– anyone who, as the prospectus puts it, “ticks you off.” A character-assassination campaign aimed at eliminating Arizona Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz,) as a future GOP presidential candidate is allegedly the firm’s first assignment, paid for with uncashed Palin dry-cleaning, limo and lunch vouchers from the recent election contest.

Certain projects seem intended to both make money and further Palin’s political career. Although a plan to trade her governorship, her tanning bed and Todd for the disgraced Ted Stevens’ Senate seat was shot down by the Alaska Supreme Court, insiders mutter Palin may still go through with her idea of performing a “Dance of the Seven Bath Towels” for a private audience at $1,000 per head.

Bruce McCall, a humorist, is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He is the author of a new children’s book, “Marveltown.” His other books include “All Meat Looks Like South America: The World of Bruce McCall” and “Zany Afternoons.”

McCain’s advisers… were furious when they heard rumors that Todd Palin was calling around to Alaska bigwigs telling them to hold their powder until 2012.

Todd Palin took personal time off from his job as a producer on Alaska’s North Slope where he works the oil field for BP to join his wife on the campaign trail. So why would he be so intimately involved in his wife’s political future?

According to one of Palin’s top gubernatorial campaign advisers, who spoke to me off the record in Alaska, Sarah Palin has only two true political advisers: “Sarah and Todd Palin.”

Supporters and critics agree that the Palins are a team when it comes to Palin’s politics. The most prominent example being Todd Palin’s role in the Troopergate scandal, where he pressured his wife’s top safety official to fire their ex-brother-in-law over a family feud.

In Palin’s administration, Todd was also copied on emails about state business, like a contentious debate over the police union contract and a bill on parental consent for teenage abortions.

Just last week Sarah Palin smiled at her husband during an interview with Fox’s Greta Van Susteren when she said she was looking forward to working together in the White House

The Todd Palin-Sarah Palin dynamic is well-known in Alaska. It’s reasonable that Sen. John McCain was angry about Todd Palin’s involvement — but McCain shouldn’t have been surprised.

But, really, was there ever any doubt?

Drudge reports that Greta Van Susteren has landed the interview with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She is traveling to Alaska to grill the former GOP vice presidential nominee. The interview is scheduled to air Monday.

Lest you get your hopes up that Palin will finally submit to a hard-hitting Q&A session, now that she has been freed from the constraints placed on her by the McCain campaign, it’s worth pointing out that Van Susteren conducted the first major interview with Todd Palin.

It focused almost exclusively on Van Susteren’s obsession with his nickname, “First Dude.”

(Via Politico)

Gov. Sarah Palin (WDCpix)

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was more than prepared should terrorists and their sympathizers quit palling around long enough to throw the coming presidential election a curve and cheat her out of the vice presidency. She has already crafted a detailed plan for her future.

Step One is to resign as governor in favor of her husband, Todd, appointed by unanimous vote of the State Legislature after “a good old-fashioned Alaska-style blackmail blitz” using secret tape recordings, spy photos and paid stool-pigeon testimony.

“Todd and the whole gang will all be living rent-free in the governor’s mansion with room service,” Palin revealed, “and they have all volunteered to serve in at least two no-show jobs apiece, to help get Alaska’s employment figures way up there.”

Palin herself will be moving to the Lower 48 “to either cash in or cash out — I didn’t go to some elite school, so I’m not sure which. I do know I’ll be doing some teaching at either Harvard or Bob Jones University. It’s a toss-up right now between the School of International Law on one hand and Home Economics 101 on the other.”

The perky, crack moose shot also revealed that she is thinking seriously, “or as seriously as a gal like me can,” about establishing a chain of “Sarah Palin’s Shoot ‘n’ Sizzle” firing ranges under tanning lamps, located atop Wal-Mart stores nationwide.

Palin claims to be close to signing with a major publisher for her memoir, “to be written by a famous book author who has a real gift of gab. He says my life reads like a fairy tale and that I play a leading role in it from start to finish.”

On the agenda as well will be the Sarah Palin Foundation, a for-profit think tank with a mandate to think about how to secure a steady flow of cash contributions and free gasoline from Big Oil for ex-Alaskan governors while she is out of political office.

Meanwhile, Palin said that plans to borrow the Alaska state police as her personal security detail would be finalized “as soon as we can root out certain rotten apples.”

Bruce McCall, a humorist, is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He is the author of “All Meat Looks Like South America: The World of Bruce McCall” and “Zany Afternoons.”

During my first trip north, I wrote about Gov. Sarah Palin’s Western spirit. I saw how her rise to power was built on individualism and a can-do spirit.

I’ve also thought about the idea of Alaska as the last sliver of wilderness when writing about Sen. Ted Stevens and his complicated love affair with the state. He often talks about how Alaska is a “young” state whose needs other members of Congress simply do not understand.

But in reporting on one Alaska character, Todd Palin, I’ve come to think about the state as a much tamer place than I’ve enjoyed imagining.

I had planned to write about how he represents the American frontiersman. Todd works with his hands, in the oil fields on the North Slope and at sea as a commercial fisherman. Both jobs are considered the most physically demanding of any occupation in Alaska.

However, after conferring with Stanford University history professor Richard White, I’m not so sure about Todd the frontiersman.

White, who is an expert on the history of U.S. mining, told me that unlike frontier towns, Alaska’s extraction industries are highly regulated and dominated by large corporations. Todd, for example, works for BP.

“I am not sure what any of this has to do with a frontier or the “old spirit” of the state,” White said, “which is mostly known for taxing extractive industries and redistributing part of the proceeds to the population.”

Todd Palin is a blue-collar worker, but perhaps he’s only reminiscent of a frontiersman.

Gov. Sarah Palin and family members at the Republican National Convention. (wdcpix)

This tough campaign hasn’t changed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in at least one big way. For Sen. John McCain’s running mate, the line between personal and professional life has always been blurry — and the last nine weeks have not changed this for her.

On Friday night, Palin sat for an interview with Greta Van Susteren of Fox News while traveling on her campaign bus in Pennsylvania. In Palin’s presence were her husband, Todd, and three of their children — Piper, Willow and Trig. Fox’s viewers saw clearly how Palin comfortably mixes family life with campaign issues.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Since her first week on the hustings, and before as governor of Alaska, Palin’s easy mix of the personal and the professional has gotten her into trouble. Critics and allies alike say her inability to separate the two is one of her chief political flaws. Judging from the Fox interview, she still doesn’t see the problem.

Halloween decorations provided the backdrop as Palin sat flanked by her youngest daughter Piper, 7, and her husband, Todd. On the other side of Todd, daughter Willow, 14, bottle-fed the youngest Palin, Trig, age 6 months.

When Van Susteren asked her what the public should know about Todd, Palin gushed.

“Oh my gosh, he is just this all-around, hard-workin’ good dad,” Palin responded. “I don’t know if people really know what a good dad he is.”

Palin went on to say that Todd is her teammate — as she has described him before. She explained that he helps her run the household when he’s not working in the oil fields or fishing so she can focus on being governor.

She also views Todd as an unofficial team member in her administration, a role that drew criticism from a special investigator looking into the “troopergate” scandal. In her interview with Van Susteren, Palin seemed to suggest that her professional relationship with her husband would not change should she become vice president.

“And I anticipate and get to look forward to that, also, right?” Palin said, smiling and looking at her husband. “Workin’ there in the White House.”

Todd smiled back.

When Sen. John McCain announced that Palin would be his vice presidential nominee, the troopergate scandal, already simmering in Alaska, burst into the national consciousness. Palin reputedly fired her state’s top safety official after he would not fire her former brother-in-law. An official state investigation into the scandal concluded that personal factors played a role in his dismissal.

A second state investigation into the matter is now underway.

Two weeks after Palin’s national debut, the personal again seemed to influence the professional. News broke that she had fired one of her closest aides after he began dating the ex-wife of a family friend. Spokespersons for Palin have given conflicting explanations for the aide’s departure.

When the aide, John Bitney, first left the administration, a spokesman said it was an “amicable” departure for “personal” reasons. Once Palin started running for vice president, a spokesman cited Bitney’s poor performance — despite the fact that just weeks before his dismissal, Palin had publicly lauded him for his work.

As the campaign season has continued, more instances of how Palin blurs her personal and professional lives have come to light. She has come under investigation for charging taxpayers $21,000 to fly her children to state events. Alaska officials are also looking into why Palin collected $17,000 in per diem for 300 nights she spent at home in Wasilla, 600 miles from the state capital, Juneau, and 40 miles from her office in Anchorage.

A spokesman for Palin has said all her travel-related expenses were within the scope of the law in Alaska. Another spokeswoman noted that Palin has spent less money overall than her predecessor.

This series of revelations has proved damaging for a candidate who built her reputation as a reformer in a state government tainted by corruption.

But, for Palin, her family is indistinguishable from being governor. Her husband is her chief adviser, and she has repeatedly used her power to keep her children close to her and to settle family or personal scores.

Those who work with Palin, or who are her close advisers, have noted that business is personal for her. She does not clearly distinguish between her work and her family.

State Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat from Anchorage, wonders whether Palin’s tendency to take work personally will translate into problems if she doesn’t become vice president.

Gara pointed out that many state legislators have not supported her national run. Others did not defend her during the troopergate investigation. “I hope she doesn’t come back here and hold grudges,” Gara said during a recent interview in his Anchorage office.

The first gentleman, known in Alaska as “the first dude,” has also come under fire for the part he played in the firing of Palin’s top safety officer and his broad involvement in the her administration.

Todd held multiple meetings with state officials in the governor’s offices about ousting his ex-brother-in-law.

He was also frequently included on email messages for state officials about official business. The emails cover such topics as a bill on parental consent for abortion; a police union contract with the state; and Andrew Halcro, a local car-rental business owner who challenged Palin in the 2006 race for governor. Halcro is a vocal critic of the Palin administration.

“I have heard criticism that I am too involved with my wife’s administration,” Todd Palin said in a written statement he submitted as part of the troopergate investigation. “My wife and I are very close. We are each other’s best friend. I have helped her at every stage in her career the best I can, and she has helped me.”

Those close to Palin in Alaska note that Todd, who works for BP on the Prudhoe Bay oil field, has been her chief adviser and confidant in her political career.

Palin’s interview with Van Susteren also showed that Palin still includes her children in her work life.

In Alaska, event organizers were often surprised to find that the governor brought her children along to state events. The Associated Press reported that Palin billed the state $21,000 to fly them on official trips with her. The state has since launched a probe to determine whether Palin violated any rules or laws in billing the state for her children’s travel.

“[Palin] said any event she can take her kids to is an event she tries to attend,” Jennifer McCarthy told AP. McCarthy helped organize a picnic in Ketchikan that Palin attended in her role as governor — and brought her daughter Piper along.

The McCain-Palin campaign has said Palin followed state policy for the children’s travel.

Piper, in fact, fielded the first question of the interview with Van Susteren Friday. Wearing a tiara and a white dress, and periodically eating candy from a plastic pumpkin, Piper smiled as she said that her aunt had helped her pick out her snow princess costume from Target.

Van Susteren chatted with the governor, Todd, Willow and Piper for about six minutes before getting to the substance of the interview.

Even when the topic switched to a somber question about national security, Palin’s family stayed on camera.

“In the event something horrible would happen and you ended up being president — I mean, not through the usual procedure, but the unusual,” Van Susteren said. “If you got that three o’clock in the morning call, I mean, whatever it may be, whether it’s some country being actively hostile against Israel or something, what’s the process?”

Piper leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. When Palin began to respond, Piper leaned across her lap to say something briefly to Todd.

“You assemble your national security team right then,” Palin responded to Van Susteren, ignoring Piper. “And, of course, everybody’s going to be standing by, ready to assist. But you do not blink when you have to make a decision to defend the homefront, to defend American lives.”

Palin remained focused on Van Susteren through the serious moments of the interview, even as Todd told Piper to be quiet.

Palin demonstrated that she is confident in doing two jobs at once — mom and leader.

This wasn’t the first moment in the campaign when Palin included her family in an interview.

In September, Katie Couric was surprised when she met Palin in her hotel room for the start of a series of interviews to find that Willow would be accompanying her mother that day.

Van Susteren wound down her interview with a final question for Piper.

“Piper,” Van Susteren asked, “if you could vote, who are you going to vote for?”

Piper sheepishly responded, with a smile, “My mom.”

Palin smiled and squeezed her daughter.

Gov. Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention (WDCpix)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Since Gov. Sarah Palin became the Republican vice presidential candidate, she’s been shaped to fit a new image.

From debate boot camp at Sen. John McCain’s Arizona ranch to a high-end makeover costing $150,000, the Palin on the national campaign trail is not the politician that voters here remember. The governor of Alaska seems transformed after a team of seasoned advisers helped craft a new political persona for her.

Standing on stage in red designer heels, her tone has sharpened and her partisan rhetoric has heightened.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

In Alaska, Palin supporters and critics alike have said the woman they see stumping in swing states and being interviewed on national TV is not the hockey mom-turned politician they once knew.

In talking with voters around Alaska, from Anchorage shopkeepers to government employees, as well as lawmakers and political insiders over the last three weeks, it’s clear that Palin has been re-branded, both in message and style, for the national arena. Critics and supporters agree that they see a change.

Recent news coverage of Palin demonstrates that she didn’t reinvent herself, but that members of the McCain campaign shaped her. Palin was heavily coached in preparation for the vice presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden. She was kept from the press for weeks before granting any interviews. Her first appearance with Katie Couric was marked by a series of canned, though often jumbled, talking points. Even her new sleek, pulled-together look was taken care of by McCain adviser Jeff Larson. Larson is also in charge of the campaign’s robocalls.

Over the next two weeks, it appears that Palin will be surrounded by more, not fewer, McCain staffers, according to an email from a campaign spokeswoman Caroline Gransee. Gransee noted that the Alaska governor’s campaign plane may start accommodating fewer members of the press to make room for more staff.

This thick insulation of strategists around Palin is something new for her.

Palin rose to power in Alaska with support from a small paid staff and an army of volunteers, but without the help of a robust strategy team. She relied on her own judgment and that of her closest adviser: Todd Palin.

Interviews with people close to the governor, political observers and long-time Alaska politicos found that Palin was never surrounded by an entourage of advisers and strategists. Instead, Palin relied on her own instincts and leaned on her husband for an outside perspective.

A former top political aide to Palin, who requested anonymity, said in an interview that the governor has an innate political sense and turns to her husband for advice. The adviser now works in the private sector, but says he is still a friend of the Palins.

“The two Alaskans that advise Sarah Palin are Sarah and Todd Palin,” the aide said in an conversation. “Her husband is her No. 1 adviser.”

The former aide also said that this is not so uncommon for politicians new to the political arena in Alaska, noting the absence of long-time political families or major think tanks.

Others involved in Alaska politics disagree.

Longtime GOP strategist Art Hackney has served as an adviser to both Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, the state’s lone House member. Stevens is on trial on charges of failing to disclose gifts worth $250,000 from the oil services firm, Veco Corp. The jury is currently deliberating. Young is under federal investigation for his ties to the same company, though he has not been charged with a crime.

Hackney, a Republican, is not a Palin supporter as either a state or national candidate. “Most of us [in Alaska politics] just scratch our heads as to who she gets her advice from,” Hackney said. “With Palin, it’s Todd Palin and some of her friends … that none of the rest of us would know.”

Palin hired several of her old friends from Wasilla to join her administration. She put one family friend, Debbie Richter, who attended college for one year, in charge of the state’s $40-billion oil and gas dividend fund program. A lawyer from the Wasilla area, Talis J. Colberg, serves as her attorney general.

One former aide, John Bitney, went to high school with Palin. He was fired abruptly after he began dating Richter, who had recently divorced her husband, a longtime friend of Todd Palin’s.

Bitney now serves as chief of staff to the state Senate president. In an email message, Bitney said he is not familiar with who Palin keeps in contact with from the campaign trail.

Palin ran as an insurgent candidate in 2006, just as the state was enveloped by a wide-ranging political scandal involving a federal probe into the dealings between lawmakers and the oil services firm, Veco Corp. A few weeks before the election, the FBI raided 12 legislative offices, including that of Stevens’ son, Ben Stevens, the president of the Alaska Senate at the time.

It’s not surprising that Palin would decide not to align herself with old-guard political advisers, though Hackney said she did approach him once about the possibility of working together. He said he turned her down because he did not believe she had enough experience to serve as governor of Alaska.

“Normally someone who rises to this kind of political career would have people around them with expertise who can advise them,” he said. “There isn’t such a defined group around her. Basically, the Palins shoot from the hip.”

Todd Palin’s role in the governor’s administration has become increasingly apparent.

According to a report released after an investigation into whether Sarah Palin abused her power in pressuring her commissioner of public safety to fire her former brother-in-law, Todd was present during official meetings, made requests of members of Palin’s administration and was copied on emails about state business.

“I have heard criticism that I am too involved with my wife’s administration,” Palin wrote in a statement he submitted as part of the investigation. “My wife and I are very close. We are each other’s best friend. I have helped her at every stage in her career the best I can, and she has helped me.”

Todd Palin is the only Alaskan traveling with Palin as part of her national campaign.

So in this stage of her career, it looks like he is still in his role as chief adviser.

Kizzia, who wrote a book on native rural village called “The Wake of the Unseen Object,” describes Lena Andree’s upbringing in rural Alaska. Her mother was a Yup’ik Alaskan and her father was a Dutch sled dog freighter, before the arrival of airplanes.

Andree’s heritage makes the governor’s children Native too — one-16th. Because of their heritage, Todd Palin and the Palin children are entitled to some government benefits, including comprehensive medical coverage, Kizzia reports.

After the vice presidential debate, we looked into Palin’s claim that she knows what it’s like for families “to sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care.”

At the time, we noted that it looks likely that the Palin family could have had a good chance of qualifying for federal health care as Native Alaskans. Though the Palins may have decided never to apply, they had a realistic fall-back plan, unlike most Americans.

Now it looks even more certain that the Palins had an alternative if they were ever in a difficult financial position. Kizzia, an expert on Alaska Natives, says the family is not just eligible to apply, but actually “eligible for Indian health benefits under federal law, as lineal descendants of Native enrollees under the 1970 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.”

Palin’s attempts to present herself as the mother of a typical working-class family doesn’t work when it comes to health care.

In appearances at sporting goods stores, Palin spoke briefly but mingled extensively with supporters who cheered his wife’s vice presidential candidacy and expressed fear of an Obama presidency. One Palin fan held a sign that said, “Charles Manson was a community organizer.“

The First Dude delivered a couple of short speeches and mingled with supporters — some of whom expressed fear of an Obama presidency. “Charles Manson was a community organizer,” said one sign. Paul Demko of Minnesota Independent was there.