BBC’s premier news magazine program, Newsnight, has a story out today on Sarah Palin (full disclosure, I was interviewed for it). They went up to Alaska where they interviewed Palin and, more interestingly, her parents. I wish I could embed the video, but, alas, BBC doesn’t allow it. So here’s the link. Palin’s parents, Sally & Chuck Heath, told the BBC that the whole family has received threats and the FBI even had to detain at least one man. An excerpt on their concerns about her potential presidential bid:
“As a mother I do have concerns about her safety and that of the kids… she knows how I feel, that it’s risky,” Sally said.
Palin’s father Chuck said a man recently had sent the family photocopies of a receipt for a gun he had bought, together with a photocopy of a one-way ticket to Alaska.
The family had laughed it off, but the man subsequently turned up in the state and was arrested by the FBI, Chuck said.
“We sleep with the guns,” Palin’s father admitted.
Palin also addressed her potential bid:
“You run the race to win the race. That’s for sure.”
“Obama has already said he’s going to spend a billion dollars (£615.4m) on this race, so money is certainly going to be a consideration,” Sarah Palin told me.
“And just the idea of whether the American electorate is ready for someone a bit unconventional, who is willing to tell it as she sees it, not be beholden to special interest or such obsessive partisanship as to let a political machine get in the way of doing what’s right for the voters.”