Sarah Palin Extends Her Influence to Prime Time
Sarah Palin no longer holds office, but she certainly holds sway.
More than half of the candidates she endorsed won in the midterm elections. She recently announced a book tour across 13 states, and on Sunday, she's headed to prime-time TV with an upcoming show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," that some interpret as a look ahead to 2012, CBS News Correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.
In "Sarah Palin's Alaska," life is an adventure: When she's not whitewater rafting, the former governor and vice presidential candidate is scaling mountains and confronting wild predators in the bush.
"A bear's coming towards us!" Palin warns family members during a fishing trip with her family in which a handful of brown bears turns up. "We're gonna back up...It could think that we are its lunch instead of those little tiny salmon."
TLC calls the program a "docu-series." Republican strategist Karl Rove, however, dismissed it as a reality show, which set off Palin's inner grizzly.
"Karl Rove, he knows that it isn't a reality show," Palin said in a recent interview on Fox News. "He knows that it's eight episodes documenting what Alaska has to offer."
But the program does capture some family friction, a hallmark of the reality genre.
"Willow, come here," Palin warns her teenage daughter as a male friend attempts to sneak upstairs into her room. "No boys go upstairs."
Palin reportedly made a million dollars per episode.
"It's really a season-long campaign commercial for her," says Scott Conroy, one of the authors of "Sarah From Alaska," which details the candidate's days on the 2008 presidential campaign trail.
"Not only is it free, she is getting paid to do it," Conroy added.
Palin, however, swears she's just your average American working mom.
"That whole misperception about being a diva, it just cracks me up," she said. "There's a gnat stuck to my lip. I would just describe myself and my family as normal average everyday Americans."
Everyday Americans who just happen to be flirting with a run for the White House.
