Earlier this week, we offered an update on Adam Brickley, a University of Colorado-Colorado Springs student who was credited with helping to bring Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to national prominence via his palinforvp.blogspot.com website. Brickley subsequently agreed to participate in an e-mail Q&A about his experiences, offering plenty of new information along the way. For one thing, he's no longer a Colorado resident; Brickley has relocated to Washington, D.C., where he's closer to the national political action. However, he remains convinced that Palin, who recently announced that she'll soon be stepping down from her current job, is well-suited for high political office -- indeed, a gig one step above the vice presidency she ran for unsuccessfully in 2008.
Read the entire interview by clicking "Continue."
Westword (Michael Roberts): Are you still based in Colorado? If so, where?
Adam Brickley: I currently live in Washington, D.C.
WW: What media outlets featured you in the days and weeks after Sarah Palin was chosen as John McCain's running mate?
AB: CNN, Fox News, The Colbert Report, The BBC, numerous newspapers, The Larry Elder Show, several international outlets.
WW: How much did your traffic increase due to your newfound notoriety? What was it before the VP selection and, for instance, a month afterward?
AB: Was up to a few thousand hits a day in the month leading up to the nomination, but I got a half million the day Palin was nominated -- and while that was an anomaly, I think it stayed up around ten-thousand per day for a little while.
WW: Did you have personal contact from either Palin herself or her representatives during the campaign?
AB: I received a call from Todd and Sarah Palin on the day she was nominated, and Todd called me again on my birthday.
WW: What's your take on how mainstream media coverage of Palin changed over the course of the campaign -- from starstruck and largely positive in the beginning to largely negative by the end?
AB: I would contend that the mainstream media coverage was never "starstuck and largely positive" -- unless you perhaps count Fox News as mainstream. It was a character assassination mission from the beginning.
WW: Was this transition predictable -- and if so, do you chalk it up to ideological bias on the part of the media, or other factors?
AB: I did expect a highly vitriolic reaction on the part of the media. Palin presented an existential threat to the prevalent media worldview, and specifically the way they portray women in elections. There is a widely repeated narrative that women are a monolithic pro-choice voting block who vote only based on the abortion issue. This makes it possible to pressure candidates based on the idea that they will lose the female vote if they don't adopt leftist social positions.
However, in reality, not all women are pro-choice, and they actually behave as intelligent human beings and vote on multiple issues. If a pro-life, conservative woman can succeed in politics, then it proves that women do not have a Pavlovian reaction to the abortion issue, and it is no longer possible to claim that pro-life positions "lose votes among women."
WW: When did you launch your new site? What's the concept behind it?
AB: The new site, The Brickyard, was launched in early 2009. It allowed me to shift from an "all-Palin-all-the-time" format to allow a broader range of discussion.
WW: For what other sites are you writing?
AB: I am also a contributing blogger at Race42012.com and Conservatives4Palin.com.
WW: What are your goals? Would you like to catch on with a larger organization, or maintain your independence?
AB: At this point in my life (age 22), I like to keep my options open. I have general goals in life, but there are a lot of potential paths that could be taken to those goal. Sarah Palin often says that she will go where God directs her, and I try to employ a similar philosophy.
WW: What's your best guess about Palin's reasons for leaving the governor's office? In your view, is this part of a strategy to run for the presidency in 2012?
AB: I wrote an entire column on this subject for Conservatives4Palin.com. I would add that it is probably better for her to take the hits now rather than to string out the madness for another year. If she were to run, this makes it possible for her to start building now, rather than remain in a holding pattern, fending off complaints for another year without being able to respond. It may not look great now, but Sarah will be in much better standing in a year thanks to this move.
WW: If she were to run, what would you see as her biggest challenges? And how do you see her chances?
AB: I think her chances are fantastic, as she resonates more than anyone with GOP primary voters. She would be one of the favorites for the nomination, and I think she has the best chance of any GOP candidate of competing with President Obama. The ultimate election results will largely be determined by Obama's performance between now and then, but I expect him to be vulnerable.
WW: Is there any subject I might not have raised that you feel is important to address?
AB: The only thing I can think of, off the top of my head, is that it is worth noting that Gov. Palin launched her statewide career by resigning in protest from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC). Whatever her plans are now, she is not flying by the seat of her pants -- this is ground she has traveled before.
