Palin: ‘Scary’ to Trust McCain Staff With Reputation

Former Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said that the biggest mistake made by Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) presidential campaign was not allowing her to make more media appearances.

“The biggest mistake made was that I could have called more shots on this: the opportunities that were not seized to speak to more Americans via media,” Palin told the conservative website Human Events, which named her its Conservative of the Year. “I was not allowed to do very many interviews, and the interviews that I did were not necessarily those I would have chosen.”

Near the end of the campaign, leaks in the media suggested internal friction between Palin and McCain handlers regarding Palin’s tendency to go off-script and bolster her own image.

Palin said she trusted McCain, but said it was “risky” to put her reputation in the hands of his staff. “I was in a campaign in which I did not know the people individually running the campaign. So I had to put my life, my career, my family, and my reputation in their hands,” she said. “That