Nicolle said they were going to do mostly network interviews, which sounded risky to me; why not start out in local and midsize markets, where the stage is smaller and the reporters are less likely to be aggressive? But that was their call. All I cared about was being first, and I was pretty sure my relationship with Nicolle would give me a leg up.
So there I was, sitting in the back seat of an SUV （my mobile office）， when she called.
“Katie, I’m so sorry”—Uh-oh—“but the decision was made to give the first interview to Charlie Gibson.”
Devastated doesn’t describe it. After we hung up, I burst into tears.
Charlie delivered a solid interview, although he was criticized for his stern, professorial demeanor—the skeptical head tilt, the reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. I was determined to keep the focus on Palin when I got my chance.
But first, more bad news: the second interview was going to Sean Hannity at Palin-friendly Fox.
“What was your family’s reaction,” Hannity says, about learning McCain had picked her. “Was that time to huddle and have a hockey-team meeting?”
Toward the end, Hannity deploys the ultimate gotcha: “What motivates you?”
I felt confident there was more wood to chop.
I was riding in the back seat of Jack’s car, on my way to the cemetery to check on Jay, when I got a call from Steve Schmidt. He said the words I’d been waiting to hear for weeks: “Okay, Katie, you’re up.”
72
You Betcha
THE DEN IN my apartment had a full wall of built-in bookcases painted cranberry red, so the girls and I named it the Red Room. But in the days leading up to my Sarah Palin interview, the Red Room became the War Room.
The floor was blanketed with research. I settled in for several marathon sessions with Brian Goldsmith—at just 25, a full-on policy wonk （in high school, he was grounded for sneaking out of his bedroom to…watch C-SPAN）。 We inhaled everything that had ever been written about Palin and her sometimes wacky views on things like evolution and global warming. Our goal wasn’t to give her a pop quiz. Since she was totally unproven on the national stage, we wanted her to reveal her positions on the issues and her fitness for the presidency. If elected, John McCain, who’d been treated for melanoma four times, would be the oldest president in history.
We picked the brains of the smartest people we knew, including the head of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass and former Georgia senator Sam Nunn, now focused on bioterrorism. The best advice came from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
“She’s really a blank canvas,” Albright told me over the phone. “No one really knows where she stands. My advice to you would be this: Just let her talk.”
Those four words sank in. It’s a natural impulse when you’re interviewing someone to try to fill the dead air, and you end up letting them off the hook. So I made a mental note to avoid jumping in, no matter how awkward the silences.
We fine-tuned a list of questions, then role-played the interview, Brian doing a not-half-bad Palin. Meanwhile, in a hotel room across town, the real Sarah Palin paced the floor, holding a thick stack of cards full of facts she was trying to memorize. It wasn’t going well.
I GOT UP AT 6 and jumped into the shower while my glam squad, Josie and Dana, filed in. Josie laid out brushes, eye shadow, and tubes of mascara and lipstick on my desk in the Red Room. Wrapped in a white terry-cloth robe, I took a seat and they went to work. Once I was camera-ready, I stepped into a navy pin-striped Hugo Boss suit that I always felt good in.
The day was glorious—crisp and crystal clear, reminding me how long it had been since I’d felt that jolt of early-morning energy. Brian, Rick, and another producer, Jen Yuille, were waiting downstairs. We piled into a black SUV and I started reviewing my questions for the first of two cracks at Palin.
I knew from watching Charlie’s interview that Palin could respond with a baffling word salad—it was critical that I didn’t let her wander off topic. I was also aware that my performance would be scrutinized almost as much as hers: what I asked, my tone, my demeanor would be pored over and picked apart. So I decided I would remain as expressionless as possible.
We settled into a makeshift studio at the Millennium Hotel. Palin walked in looking friendly but tense. As she was getting mic’d, she told me how much her parents liked me. Then she started futzing with her Elle Woods–worthy pink jacket, which was refusing to lie flat against her décolletage. So, in a surprise Girlfriend, I got you moment, I grabbed a piece of gaffer’s tape from a crew member and offered it to her, which she appreciated （is there anything women bond over more quickly than a wardrobe malfunction?）。