Alaska Dispatch

Standing before a warm and welcoming crowd of thousands at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks in the bitter winter of December 2006, newly elected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin positively glowed. A natural-born populist and self-proclaimed reformer, she'd just bested not one but two former governors on her way to the big, white mansion in the capital city of Juneau.

Running against the leaders of her own party, she trounced Republican incumbent and former U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski in the primary, then soundly whipped popular Democratic former Gov. Tony Knowles in the general election. With the thrill of victory coursing in her veins, Palin was happy, excited and ready to shake things up in Alaska politics.

THE E-MAILS: Read e-mails obtained by Alaska Dispatch that were sent on then-Gov. Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo account: Palin-emails READ PART I, Conundrum(at)state.ak.us E-mails written by Sarah Palin in the early months of her term show that she wished to keep some state matters out of the public eye.

"I will unambiguously, steadfastly and doggedly guard the interests of this great state as a mother naturally guards her own," she told a cheering Interior mob estimated at 5,000. She hadn't quite yet found the language that would later become a trademark -- the metaphor wherein she assumes the roll of a grizzly bear protecting its cubs -- but she made it clear she was ready to do battle.

Then she went to Juneau and discovered how hard it is to wrestle an amoeba.

Alaska government, Palin was to learn, is more like a heavily laden oil tanker bound south from Valdez than the nimble fishing boats on which she and husband Todd buzz across the waters of Bristol Bay in summer. The heft of bureaucracy makes the ship of state slow to respond to the hand at the helm. Change does not come quickly or easily. Steering the state of Alaska with 16,000 full-time employees and 13,000 part timers is nothing like running the city of Wasilla with about 50 workers.

Replacing a few key players at the local level in Wasilla can produce a lot of change quickly. It doesn't work that way at the state level, however, and copies of e-mails Palin sent key political advisers, subordinates and friends early in her administration show a quickly developing frustration with this new reality.

Alaska Dispatch has obtained copies of a number of these communications from early in the Palin administration that were sent on the then-governor's personal Yahoo account. They paint a picture of a reform-minded governor wrestling with a reluctant bureaucracy. On Jan. 13, 2007 -- barely a month after the Fairbanks inauguration -- Palin sent an e-mail to chief of staff Mike Tibbles, copied to other top officials in her administration, expressing the opinion that trying to change Alaska state government was already becoming a pain in the butt.

"all this back and forth with some of the people whom i have chosen gets pretty frustrating, especially knowing there are still people on board like (Mike) Chambers and others who have to be replaced,'' Palin wrote in a characteristic style of random capitalization and punctuation. "it should be easier than it is [for] Mike -- for me to say I want to hire someone and then they get hired. "we've hired people I don't even know, people who have adamantly opposed me and my agenda - and i would be an idiot for trusting them now, and yet we have a lot of people out there who WANT to work for a new administration who are just plain losing faith already.''

Chambers was a former Murkowski spokesman who had left the governor's office for a job as chief of communications for the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. Palin clearly wanted the one-time Murkowski apologist gone. Later in the same Jan. 13 e-mail she directed Tibbles to "please have Meg [Stapleton] replace Mike Chambers and others who will be seen as extremely inconsistent in their messages now that they have a new boss and must 'change their message' accordingly.'''

Palin at times appears flabbergasted that it seemed so hard to get the people she wanted into state jobs.

"I know Ryan Colgan [a former aide to Fairbanks mayor Jim Whitaker] bugs folks, but he is supportive and wants a job so he can help,'' she wrote. "Why not find a spot for him somewhere in the 17,000 state employee group. What about John Reeves [a Fairbanks businessman] who's a no-nonsense hard worker? What about the host of others that have been in front of us for about two months now who continually get passed over for people who do not support a 'new energy' agenda that's all about bringing in new people and new ideas?"