Fact Checks on Palins New Book

The differences in statements and fact in her book are not as contradictory as most people would have expected. Though there are some caveats.

Fact-checking Sarah Palin

Here are some of former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s claims in “Going Rogue,” her new book released this week:

Frugal Governor

Palin: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking “only” for reasonably priced rooms and not “often” going for the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels.

Facts: Although travel records show she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City’s Central Park for a five-hour women’s leadership conference in October 2007. With airfare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000.

Campaign Donors

Palin: Boasts that she ran her campaign for governor on small donations, mostly from first-time givers, and turned back large checks from big donors if her campaign perceived a conflict of interest.

Facts: Of the roughly $1.3 million she raised for her primary and general election campaigns for governor, more than half came from people and political action committees giving at least $500. She accepted $1,000 each from a state senator and his wife, and $30 from a state representative in the weeks after the two Republican lawmakers’ offices were raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into a powerful Alaska oil-field services company.

Federal Bailouts

Palin: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to President Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in business, “you’ll have to be brave enough to fail.”

Facts: Palin blurs the lines between Obama’s stimulus plan – a $787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and government contracts – and the federal bailout that Republican presidential candidate John McCain voted for and President George W. Bush signed.

Conflicts of Interest

Palin: Writes about a city councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, who owned a garbage truck company and tried to push through an ordinance requiring residents of new subdivisions to pay for trash removal instead of taking it to the dump for free – this to illustrate her stance against conflicts of interest as a public servant.

Facts: As Wasilla mayor, Palin pressed for a zoning exception so she could sell her family’s $327,000 house, then did not keep a promise to remove a potential fire hazard on the property. She asked the City Council to loosen rules for snowmobile races when she and her husband owned a snowmobile store. But she stepped away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snowmobile race in which her husband competes.

Climate Change

Palin: Says Obama has admitted that the climate change policy he seeks will cause people’s electricity bills to “skyrocket.”

Facts: She correctly quotes a comment attributed to Obama in January 2008, when he told San Francisco Chronicle editors that under his cap-and-trade climate proposal, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” as utilities are forced to retrofit coal-burning power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Obama now argues that climate legislation can blunt the cost to consumers.

SF Gate