Meghan McCain - Dirty Sexy Politics

I loved the way she and my dad looked together—physically, I thought they complemented each other very well. There was also discussion about Sarah being a “maverick,” something I thought we’d have in common.

But when I looked over at Bristol, who was holding her baby brother, Trig, I remember thinking two things: That poor girl looks shell-shocked and why does she have a giant blanket covering her stomach?

A new phase was dawning in our lives, and in the life of our campaign. I felt that too. The relationship between a presidential candidate and the running mate is extremely personal and intimate. In essence these two people and their two families become one family and one entity. Our Pirate Ship had spent fourteen months in a bubble. Now we’d have to expand to include them, and our lives would forever be intertwined in some way.

Best of all, there were so many Palin daughters! I’m a girl’s girl, and have always felt like everybody’s sister or everybody’s girl next door. And suddenly, there were lots of new young women and little girls for me to make friends with, play with, laugh with. I could take them under my wing, look after them, the way I love looking after my little sister, Bridget. I could show them the ropes. Political rallies and stages and conventions had defined my childhood. (Even in utero: My mother was pregnant with me at the Republican convention in 1984.) Mostly I was excited to share with the Palin girls that wild, we’re-in-this-together feeling of a big campaign.

Just minutes later, we were onstage—all of us, both families, showing the world what we looked like. It was impossible to guess how the world would react.

YOU KNOW HOW BEYONCÉ HAS HER ALTER PERSONA, Sasha Fierce? Well, I have one too. After the election, a blogger referred to me as Meggie Mac. And that is what I now call her. For me, she’s the person who comes out on any stage, and talks in interviews. She is lively and polite, energetic and cheerful, and always tries to be great company. When I’m overwhelmed, Meggie Mac is there for me in clutch moments. It’s hard to explain, but comforting to know I can tap into her. I can turn her on, become Meggie Mac, most of the time. And on that day, I thanked God that I could.

I don’t have illusions about what my real job was on the campaign. I can talk about the blog and my moderate Republican fanbase until I’m blue in the face, but basically, all my job ever was, or would be—even if I became a First Daughter—was to stand up straight (chin up, core tight, it all helps with camera angles), keep a smile on my face, look admiringly at my father, and clap at the appropriate times.

Being a political prop isn’t easy and it can mess with your mind. There are cameras on you, all the time. The entire traveling press corps stands right in front of you, staring and gawking and judging. You can’t scratch your face or rub your nose. You can’t yawn in boredom, or sit down when your feet start swelling.

The hardest part for me is seeing how reporters react. They show everything on their faces—much more than they know. Sometimes they don’t bother trying to hide it, as though they stopped seeing you and your family as human beings, or even sentient creatures. After following us around for days, weeks, months, years… maybe they stop caring. The funny thing is that they don’t seem to understand that they can become our entertainment as much as we become theirs.

From the stage, I could see everything that went on— hellooo, you are sitting directly in front of me. The press corps was often assembled on risers or on seats, and quite visible, but they acted as if we never saw them. They would gab on their cell phones and text in front of me. When they were bored, they would do yoga stretches, forward bends, or pick the goo out of their eyes. When they were actually listening, they would shake their heads and roll their eyes at something my father was saying. Unlike the 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 was a woman, I felt shaken and troubled. A wave of worry swept over me and I remember thinking, I don’t know anything about this woman and neither does the rest of the country.