Today Sarah Palin may have little love for Mitt Romney, but there was a time when they worked hand in hand to break Alaska campaign laws together.

Courtesy of my friend Geoffrey Dunn, and posted over at the Huffington Post:

During the final weeks of her campaign in September of 2006, Palin was the beneficiary of a $107,000 television advertisement campaign paid for and produced by the RGA. The Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) later fined the RGA (with Romney at the helm) $26,600 for two separate activities related to Palin's gubernatorial campaign and warned that the fine could have been levied as high as $6 million. The fines levied by APOC against the RGA were for distributing campaign mailers within 30 days of the election, and because television advertisements the RGA produced featuring Palin were obviously broadcast for partisan purposes. 

The RGA television ads went negative on Palin's chief opponent in the race, former Democratic governor Tony Knowles. One of them featured Knowles walking backwards in slow motion. The ad also contained footage of Palin jauntily leaving an Anchorage hotel that clearly looked staged--and that's because it apparently was, according to Palin's former director of boards and commissions, Frank Bailey, who worked closely with her on the campaign. 

Such outside advertising campaigns are common, but Alaska election law strictly requires that there be no "coordination" between the candidate and their campaign with the so-called "527 group" organizing and producing the ads. 

Both Palin and Romney escaped any personal accountability for the questionable activities of their respective organizations. But leaked emails from the Palin campaign reveal that there was, in fact, coordination between Palin's campaign, Romney and the RGA--which is illegal under Alaska campaign laws--though in respect to the issue of "coordination," APOC dismissed the complaint and issued no sanctions. 

Geoffrey has done a great job of using Palin's own newly released e-mails to prove that Palin did indeed coordinate with Romney, who was then chairmen of the Republican Governor's Association, to break Alaska campaign laws in order to defeat Tony Knowles.

The e-mails, which the Palin administration refused to share with APOC, leave little doubt that Palin should have suffered some very serious legal ramifications at the time. Sadly for those of us who want justice the statue of limitations has now run out.

And of course today Palin is no REAL threat in the world of politics. What was it that Sam Donaldson said?

"I don't speak ill of the dead."

However Mitt Romney is still quite relevant today, and might very well be the Republican candidate to face off against the President in November. So this flouting of Alaska campaign laws is yet another black mark against the candidate, who I heard described today as somebody seemingly "without a moral compass" and a person willing to "go to any means in order to move his agenda forward."

In fact Palin and Romney are two of a kind when it comes to ignoring the law in order to do whatever they damn well please to achieve their goals.  Perhaps one of the reasons that the Grizzled Mama has such obvious disdain for "Captain Mormon Underpants" is because looking at him reminds her too much of the ugliness she sees looking back at her from the mirror.

But then again it might simply be that he is about to get the nomination that she covets with all of her heart, yet realizes she is too unqualified and ignorant to ever attain.