As Governor, Palin Allegedly Told Aide: 'I Hate This Damn Job'

Shortly before resigning as governor of Alaska in 2009 -- about halfway through her four-year term -- Sarah Palin allegedly e-mailed a colleague saying, "I hate this damn job."

That's one of the juicier allegations in a new book being written by one of Palin's top aides, which was leaked to the press over the weekend. (How the manuscript was disseminated has created a mini-tempest of its own, centering on another author, Joe McGinniss, who is also working on a book about the 2008 vice presidential candidate and conservative firebrand.)

One chapter of the draft manuscript by Frank Bailey and two ghost writers asserts that Palin broke election laws by coordinating with the Republican Governors Association during her 2006 campaign for governor. (Election laws do not permit candidates to work with soft-money groups such as the RGA.)

Pam Pryor, a spokeswoman for Palin's political action committee, told the Anchorage Daily News the allegations were untrue and that she didn't expect Palin to comment on the matter.

Bailey is working with Ken Morris and Jeanne Devon on the project, titled "In Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years." Devon wrote on her anti-Palin website, Mudflats, that the three co-authors are "shocked and horrified" by the leak.

Morris, in a separate Mudflats post, said: "For over a year . . . we worked in silence. We spent countless hours . . . constructing what we believed was an important book, based on documented truth. Within the last month, we finished a marketable draft." (A publisher has not been secured for the project.)

Through lawyer Dean M. Steinbeck, Morris has accused McGinniss of copyright infringement, saying that he chose "to unlawfully distribute [our work] to multiple news outlets, bloggers, political activists, and any one else you felt might be interested." In so doing, the letter alleges, McGinniss has diminished interest in Bailey's book "and thereby salvaged the marketability of your own book. This matter appears to be no more than that of a jealous author sabotaging a competitor via unlawful and unscrupulous means."

The Daily News said it obtained copies of the book from McGinniss as well as other sources.

Steinbeck's letter adds that "The Copyright Owners are currently reviewing their legal options."

Speaking of the book project, Devon said on her blog that Bailey "retained tens of thousands of emails between Palin and her confidantes, which were sent to him over the years, beginning in 2005, and going through the end of his relationship with Palin in the summer of 2009."

Bailey was a central figure in the "Troopergate" affair that surfaced during the 2008 presidential campaign, when Palin was John McCain's surprise pick as his running mate. Troopergate involved an investigation into why Palin dismissed her public safety commissioner after he refused to fire state trooper Mike Wooten -- with whom Palin's sister was involved in a child custody battle when the couple divorced in 2006.

The Alaska State Personnel Board investigated the matter and ruled that Palin did not violate state ethics laws.