US pores over Sarah Palin's 24,000 email pages

Published on Saturday 11 June 2011 11:18

MORE THAN 24,000 pages of emails released on Friday from US Republican Sarah Palin's first 21 months as governor showed her involved closely in the day-to-day business of Alaska while trying to cope with the increasing pressures that came with her national prominence as the Republican candidate for vice-president in the 2008 elections.

The emails were packed into six boxes, weighing 250lb in all, stacked in a small office in the Alaskan capital of Juneau.

Within minutes of the release, Palin tweeted a link to the website for The Undefeated, a documentary about her time as governor and her arrival on the national political stage.

Her supporters, meanwhile, encouraged everyone to read the messages.

"The emails detail a governor hard at work," said Tim Crawford, the treasurer of her political action committee, Sarah PAC, in a prepared statement.

Palin is among the top tier of potential 2012 presidential candidates in polls of Republican voters. A recent extensive political bus tour fuelled speculation about her national ambitions. She has said she has not yet decided whether she will run.

Many American news organisations including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and msnbc.com began scanning and posting the emails on their websites almost immediately. The New York Times even asked readers to join reporters in reviewing the documents while titbits of the emails were featured on blogs and Twitter.

"It's insane," said Tony Leadholm, an academic counsellor at the University of California. "It seems anywhere you go, the release of these emails is in your face and there's war going on and actual real people who have actually declared their intent to run for president."

The emails were first requested during the 2008 White House race by citizens and news organisations as they vetted a nominee whose political experience included less than one term as governor and a term as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

The nearly three-year delay in releasing the material has been attributed largely to the sheer volume. Lawyers went through every page to redact sensitive government information. Another reason was the nearly 500 open records requests during Palin's tenure, and the state's decision to deal with smaller, easier ones first.

The emails cover the period from the time Palin took office in December 2006 to her ascension to Republican vice presidential candidate in September 2008.

In the months before she became presidential nominee John McCain's running mate, the emails showed a governor dealing with complaints, rumours and gossip about her family. In several, she asked about the identity of someone who alleged that she had not buckled her son, Trig, properly into his car seat.

In another, she lamented about gossip about her family and marriage.Palin and her daughter, Bristol, appeared to be travelling in a car, and Bristol emailed a Palin staffer in July 2008: "Mom and I were just praying about the hurt and anger that comes with her job. Thank you for your faith in God. We share it and we love you!" Bristol wrote, from her mother's email account.

The emails portrayed Palin as a close reader of news accounts, wanting to correct things she believed to be - or were in fact - wrong.