[Ed: Guess this means that Palin--and McCain--won't playing the "gender card" anytime soon.]
By Karen Breslau
When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin arrived backstage for our NEWSWEEK Women & Leadership Event in Los Angeles last March, John McCain
had just wrapped up the GOP nomination. Palin had yet to endorse
McCain—she liked Mitt Romney—and as we waited in the green room, I
urged her to "feel free" to make some news on stage. She grinned
broadly—looking back, I guess it was a grin of the Cheshire Cat
variety—and thanked me for the offer.
Once onstage,
together with Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Palin talked about what
women expect from women leaders; how she took charge in Alaska during a
political scandal that threatened to unseat the state's entire
Republican power structure, and her feelings about Sen. Hillary
Clinton. (She said she felt kind of bad she couldn't support a woman,
but she didn't like Clinton's "whining.")
I joked with
her about being on McCain's short list for vice president, and we had a
good chuckle. We also talked about the challenges of running a
government while also raising a large and young family. At the time, I
didn't know that Palin, clad in a loose, dark dress, was seven months
pregnant with her fifth child. An aide called me the next day to tell
me that Palin would be announcing the pregnancy at home in Alaska and
that she had wanted me to know as a courtesy. She was sorry she hadn't
mentioned it the night before.
READ THE REST HERE.
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