Who was this woman with the vast family, the Neanderthal views on abortion and gay marriage, the empty CV and the voice that sounded as if she'd never stepped outside the 5,000 population town of which she had once been mayor?

Her signal achievements, the media reported, were as an aggressive player on her high school basketball team (nickname: Sarah Barracuda!), winner of a local beauty contest and loyal wife to the winner of the Alaskan snowmobile racing championship.

Then, as reporters descended on the state and filled their notebooks with takes from the burnished grudges of everyone she'd ever crossed, the story changed. The picture of pretty backcountry ingénue was torn off the front pages and hastily replaced by something much more sinister: the ruthlessly ambitious huckster, up to her eyes in corrupt state politics, a chancer heartless enough to expose her pregnant 17-year-old daughter to the horrors of a national political campaign. By the time the media has the final story straight - contemptible thick hick from the sticks or scary manipulator of helpless innocents - they might get to notice something else. People like her.