Sarah Palin has a new project in the works under the radar. Conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon plans to give Americans a look into Palin's political career, Alaska governorship and to put rumors to rest over her resignation with hopes of rebuilding her image with all voters and has produced a two hour film showing Palin's journey to being one of the greatest influences in American politics.
Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin's governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.
The response was more positive than Palin could have hoped for. He'd make a feature-length movie, Bannon told Mansour, and he insisted upon taking complete control and financing it himself -- to the tune of $1 million.
The fruits of that initial conversation are now complete. The result is a two-hour-long, sweeping epic, a rough cut of which Bannon screened privately for Sarah and Todd Palin last Wednesday in Arizona, where Alaska's most famous couple has been rumored to have purchased a new home. When it premieres in Iowa next month, the film is poised to serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin's prospective presidential campaign -- an unconventional reintroduction to the nation that she and her political team have spent months eagerly anticipating, even as Beltway Republicans have largely concluded that she won't run.
The film sounds like a combination between her books Going Rogue and America by Heart. I wouldn't count a Palin presidential run out just yet folks, it looks like she's just getting started. Will she run?
I sat down with Bannon during the Conservative Political Action Conference in February where we discussed his most recent film about Ronald Reagan and his life at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member