Newsweek on Sarah Palin:

"Take the spontaneity, and inscrutability, of the lead-up to the movie screening. The Undefeated is an emphatic defense of the Palin record and an argument for her political indispensability—an ideal campaign accessory. (SarahPAC, Palin’s political-action committee, is offering DVDs to supporters who donate $100 or more.) Steve Bannon, the film’s director, had long planned a splashy Iowa premiere, envisioning it as the vehicle for Palin to make her first appearance this year in the politically important state, whose midwinter caucuses are the first test of a candidate’s viability.

Palin accepted Bannon’s invitation the week before the tentative date of the premiere, leaving him just five days to organize the event. He settled on Pella, an old Dutch town with the country’s largest working windmill, and booked all available rooms in the town’s principal hotel. Bannon also obtained the services of Craft International, a high-end security firm, which dispatched to the scene a four-man team: three former Navy SEALs and a former member of British special operations.

They arrived the day before the event and were instructed to repair that night to the local airfield, where the Palins were to arrive by private plane. The night passed, but the Palins didn’t arrive. The team learned the next day that the couple had gone to Minneapolis, to help Bristol get settled in for the start of her book tour at the Mall of America.

The next morning—the day of the event—Bannon and his security team learned, via Twitter, that the Palins had spent the night in Des Moines. ('Our hotel was right down the block from The Des Moines Register,' Palin later told me, plainly pleased. 'Nobody knew we were there.') After Sarah’s morning run by the river, they were driving to Pella.

On the fly, a new security plan was conceived: the Craft operatives would meet the Palins as they exited the interstate from Des Moines, about 45 minutes away, and escort them into town. The street outside the Pella Opera House, where the film was to be shown, was blocked off as satellite trucks arrived, television camera crews set up, and throngs of reporters and eager Iowans gathered. But as the hour of the event neared, the security men shrugged to one another; nothing from the Palins. Then, barely an hour before the scheduled premiere, came word that they had already arrived; they’d parked their rented Chevy Malibu and were up the street in a Dutch bakery, signing autographs and posing for photographs with admirers."