Dirty Sexy Politics Read Online Free PDF

audience members, who sat with open faces and seemed to have open minds, the traveling press corps seemed closed up, not interested, and 100 percent Team Obama, which they made very little effort to conceal.
    Sometimes it ruined my Meggie Mac concentration if I started to think about how shut down they were, and how we couldn’t reach them, how so many of them had already made up their minds that all Republicans are uncool or stupid or elitist or racist or whatever. We were like an ugly traveling circus to them, and a circus they’d seen too much of. They thought we were close-minded.
    They seemed the most close-minded of all.
    After the election was over, I saw a picture on Facebook of a campaign reporter’s laptop screen as it faced out at a sea of stadium seats at a political convention. On the screen of the laptop, in giant letters, were the words “ FUCK POLITICS .”
    This was meant to be funny, obviously, and drown us all in irony. I’m sure it can be awful to hear the same speeches over and over, hundreds of times. But isn’t this journalist complaining about having front row seats to history? The more I thought about this picture, the more it bothered me. And sadly, it played into my own fears and insecurities about the media. It pretty much summed up what I already believed the traveling press corps was writing anyway: “Fuck politics!” oh yeah, and “Fuck Republicans!” because we’ve got Obama now, haven’t you heard? He’s going to fix every problem this country has ever had!
    Of course, this made me want to shout and yell and scream. I know that a life in politics requires thick skin, or at least the ability to act as though you are impervious, or insensitive, or simply floating above the fray. But that wouldn’t be me.
    I did have a few tricks, though, for keeping myself collected onstage. I found if I started focusing on one particular reporter—watching him or her intently, and trying to notice every single thing about him or her—I could stay engaged and alert.
    This mental exercise probably sounds boring, but I had ways of making it fascinating. For instance, if there were two reporters who had a thing for each other, and were always flirting, I would focus on them. Usually they made lots of intriguing attempts to cover up the fact that they were attracted to each other, but at the same time, it would be almost impossible for them to be near each other at a rally or anywhere else, without flirting as though they were sitting in a bar.
    I guess it’s natural that I should enjoy turning the tables on people who spend all their time studying my dad and mom and the rest of our family, trying to learn our secrets so they can expose them. And it’s funny that reporters never seemed aware that we paid attention to their behavior—or realized that, as much as gossip from inside the campaign became known to the media, the gossip from the back of the plane made its way to us.
    The romantic antics of one female reporter kept me entertained for months, as I followed the dramatic twists and turns of her flirting, overdrinking, and crazy-sex. If I hadn’t disliked her work so much, I might have felt sorry for her.
    It was witnessing behavior like that, not just between members of the press corps, but inside our campaign as well—moments when I saw people trying to cover up, or hide, or out-and-out lie—that helped me create one of my mottos in life: There are no secrets . Even though it is sometimes the most difficult thing in life, I always try to be up-front and own my shit. If I’m up to something, I talk about it. If I do something stupid or bad, I admit it. There are no secrets. Because one way or another, all things are revealed. I believe that.
    BUT I WANT TO GET BACK TO SARAH PALIN, AND THAT day when I went onstage and stood clapping as my dad announced that he couldn’t wait to “introduce her to Washington, DC.” As much as I was excited by the news of the announcement, and that she