Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin at Dillingham boat harbor in June 2007
11th Governor of Alaska
Incumbent
Assumed office December 4, 2006
Lieutenant	Sean Parnell
Preceded by	Frank Murkowski
Chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission
In office 2003–2004
Preceded by	Camille Oechsli Taylor
Succeeded by	John K. Norman
Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska
In office 1996–2002
Preceded by	John Stein
Succeeded by	Dianne M. Keller
Member of the Wasilla, Alaska City Council
In office 1992–1996
Personal details
Born	(1964-02-11) February 11, 1964 Sandpoint, Idaho, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Todd Palin (since 1988)
Children	Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, Trig
Residence(s)	Wasilla, Alaska
Alma mater	University of Idaho
Occupation	Former local news sportscasting Business Commercial fishing Politician
Signature
Website	Alaska Governor Sarah Palin
More detailed articles about Sarah Palin: McCain–Palin campaign, 2008 Governorship of Alaska, 2006–present Mayoralty of Wasilla, 1996–2002 Political positions  · Electoral history Public image and reception

Sarah Louise Heath Palin (Template:Pron-en; born February 11, 1964) is the governor of the U.S. state of Alaska.

Palin was a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996 and the city's mayor from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004. She was elected governor of Alaska in November 2006 by defeating Frank Murkowski, the incumbent governor, in the Republican primary, and then defeating Tony Knowles, a former two-term Democratic governor, in the general election. She is the first female governor of Alaska and the youngest person elected governor.

Palin was the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election together with Senator John McCain. The election was won by Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Palin was the second female candidate and the first Alaskan candidate of either major party, as well as the first female vice-presidential nominee of the Republican Party.

Early life and education

Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, the third of four children of Sarah Heath (née Sheeran), a school secretary, and Charles R. Heath, a science teacher and track coach. The family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. As a child, she sometimes went moose hunting with her father before school. The family regularly ran 5 km and 10 km races.

Palin attended Wasilla High School in Wasilla, located 44 miles (71 km) north of Anchorage. She was the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at the school and the point guard and captain of the school's girls' basketball team that won the Alaska state championship in 1982.

In 1982, she enrolled at Hawaii Pacific College, but left after her first semester. She transferred to North Idaho community college, where she spent two semesters as a general studies major. From there, she transferred to the University of Idaho for two semesters. During this time Palin won the Miss Wasilla Pageant, then finished third in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality" award. Afterwards, Palin attended the Matanuska-Susitna community college in Alaska for one term. The next year she returned to the University of Idaho where she spent three semesters completing her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism, graduating in 1987.

In 1988, she worked as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV and KTVA-TV in Anchorage, Alaska, and for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman as a sports reporter. She also helped in her husband’s commercial fishing family business.

City council of Wasilla

See also: Electoral history of Sarah Palin

Palin was elected twice to the city council of Wasilla, in 1992 and 1995. Wasilla city councillors serve three-year terms. Palin says she entered politics because she was concerned that revenue from a new Wasilla sales tax would not be spent wisely.

Palin's first foray into politics was in 1992, when the then 28-year-old ran for Wasilla city council against John Hartrick, a local telephone company worker. She won 530 votes against John Hartrick’s 310. On the council, she successfully opposed a measure to curtail the hours at Wasilla's bars by two hours. This surprised Hartrick because she was then a member of a church that advocated abstinence from alcohol. After serving on the city council for three years, she ran for reelection against R’nita Rogers in 1995, winning 413 votes to Rogers' 185.

According to Laura Chase of Wasilla, and former Wasilla mayor John Stein, Palin as city councilwoman mentioned to her colleagues in 1995 that she saw the book Daddy's Roommate in the public library and did not think that it belonged there. Chase later became Palin's campaign manager for mayor in 1996, when Palin defeated John Stein, but the two had a falling out and Chase is now a vocal critic of Palin. City of Wasilla Library records indicate that there was never a request for the library to remove the book and that no books were ever censored or banned. The McCain-Palin campaign says that Palin was not advocating censorship.

Palin did not complete her second term on the city council because she ran for mayor in 1996. Throughout her tenure on the city council and the rest of her career, Palin has been a registered Republican.

Mayor of Wasilla

Main article: Mayoralty of Sarah Palin

Palin served two three-year terms (1996–2002) as the mayor of Wasilla. At the conclusion of Palin's tenure as mayor in 2002, the town had about 6,300 residents. In 1996, Palin defeated three-term incumbent mayor John Stein, on a platform targeting wasteful spending and high taxes. Stein says that she introduced abortion, gun rights, and term limits as campaign issues. Although the election was a nonpartisan blanket primary, the state Republican Party ran advertisements on her behalf.

First term

Shortly after taking office in October 1996, Palin consolidated the position of museum director and asked for updated resumes and resignation letters from some top officials, including the police chief, public works director, finance director, and librarian. Palin stated this request was to find out their intentions and whether they supported her. She temporarily required department heads to get her approval before talking to reporters, saying that they first needed to become acquainted with her administration's policies. She created the position of city administrator, and reduced her own $68,000 salary by 10%, although by mid-1998 this was reversed by the city council.

According to Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Emmons, Palin inquired two or three times in October 1996 as to how Emmons would handle any request to remove books from the library. John Stein, the former mayor of Wasilla and Palin's 1996 political opponent, said in September 2008 that Palin's "religious beliefs," and the concerns of some voters about language in the books, motivated her inquiries. In December 1996, Palin said she had no books or other material in mind for removal. No books were removed from the library, and Palin stated in 2006 that she would not allow her personal religious beliefs to dictate her political positions.

Palin fired Emmons and Police Chief Irl Stambaugh in January 1997, stating that she did not feel they fully supported her efforts to govern the city. The next day, following expressions of public support for Emmons and a personal meeting, Palin rescinded the firing of Emmons, stating that her concerns had been alleviated, and adding that Emmons agreed to support Palin's plan to merge the town's library and museum operations. Stambaugh, who along with Emmons had supported Palin's opponent in the election, filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination, violation of his contract, and gender discrimination. In the trial, the defense further alleged political reasons; Stambaugh said that he had opposed a bill in the state legislature that Palin supported. The bill, SB 177, would have permitted concealed weapons in banks, bars, colleges, and other public places. Governor Tony Knowles' Senate Journal entry announcing his veto of SB 177 mentioned the opposition of, among other parties, the City of Wasilla. The federal judge who heard the case said in the decision that the police chief serves at the discretion of the mayor, and can be terminated for nearly any reason, even a political one, and dismissed Stambaugh's lawsuit ordering Stambaugh to pay Palin's legal fees.

Palin appointed Charles Fannon to replace Stambaugh as police chief. Fannon later opposed a state law preventing police departments from billing rape victims or their health insurance for evidence collection kits. Fannon said that the Wasilla police had sometimes billed victims' health insurance in the past; Stambaugh said that under his tenure the city had paid. An investigation by the St. Petersburg Times found no evidence that Palin had ever commented on the policy at all.

During her first year in office, Palin kept a jar with the names of Wasilla residents on her desk, and once a week she pulled a name from it and picked up the phone; she would ask: "How's the city doing?" Using income generated by a 2% sales tax that was enacted before she was elected to the city council, Palin cut property taxes by 75% and eliminated personal property and business inventory taxes. Tapping municipal bonds, she made improvements to the roads and sewers, and increased funding to the Police Department. She also oversaw new bike paths and procured funding for storm-water treatment to protect freshwater resources. At the same time, she reduced spending on the town museum and blocked construction of a new library and city hall. Palin ran for re-election against Stein in 1999 and won, with 74% of the vote. She was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

Second term

During her second term as mayor, Palin introduced a ballot measure proposing the construction of a municipal sports center to be financed by a 0.5% sales tax increase. The $14.7 million Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex was built on time and under budget, but the city spent an additional $1.3 million because of an eminent domain lawsuit caused by the failure to obtain clear title to the property before beginning construction. The city's long-term debt grew from about $1 million to $25 million through voter-approved indebtedness of $15 million for the sports complex, $5.5 million for street projects, and $3 million for water improvement projects. A city council member defended the spending increases as being caused by the city's growth during that time.

Palin also joined with nearby communities in jointly hiring the Anchorage-based lobbying firm of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh to lobby for federal funds. The firm secured nearly $8 million in earmarked funds for the Wasilla city government, and another $19 million for other public and private entities in the Wasilla valley area. Earmarks included $500,000 for a youth shelter, $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs, and $15 million for a rail project linking Wasilla and the ski resort community of Girdwood. Term limits prevented Palin from running for a third term as mayor in 2002.

Post-mayoral years

In 2002, Palin ran for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a five-way Republican primary. The Republican ticket of U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski and Leman won the November 2002 election. When Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in December 2002 to become governor, he considered appointing Palin to replace him in the Senate, but chose his daughter, Lisa Murkowski, who was then an Alaskan state representative.

Governor Murkowski appointed Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. She chaired the Commission beginning in 2003, serving as Ethics Supervisor. Palin resigned in January 2004, protesting what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Republican members.

After resigning, Palin filed a formal complaint against Oil and Gas Conservation Commissioner Randy Ruedrich, also the chair of the state Republican Party, accusing him of doing work for the party on public time and of working closely with a company he was supposed to be regulating. She also joined with Democratic legislator Eric Croft to file a complaint against Gregg Renkes, a former Alaskan Attorney General, accusing him of having a financial conflict of interest in negotiating a coal exporting trade agreement, while Renkes was the subject of investigation and after records suggesting a possible conflict of interest had been released to the public. Ruedrich and Renkes both resigned and Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.

From 2003 to June 2005, Palin served as one of three directors of "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group designed to provide political training for Republican women in Alaska. In 2004, Palin told the Anchorage Daily News that she had decided not to run for the U.S. Senate that year, against the Republican incumbent, Lisa Murkowski, because her teenage son opposed it. Palin said, "How could I be the team mom if I was a U.S. Senator?"

Governor of Alaska

Main article: Governorship of Sarah Palin

Palin visits soldiers of the Alaska National Guard, July 24, 2007.

In 2006, running on a clean-government platform, Palin defeated incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Her running mate was State Senator Sean Parnell.

Despite being outspent by her Democratic opponent, she won the gubernatorial election in November, defeating former governor Tony Knowles by a margin of 48.3% to 40.9%. Palin became Alaska's first female governor, and at the age of 42, the youngest governor in Alaskan history. She is the state's first governor to have been born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood, and the first not to be inaugurated in Juneau; she chose to have the ceremony held in Fairbanks instead. She took office on December 4, 2006, and has been very popular with Alaska voters. Polls taken in 2007 early in her term showed her with a 93% and 89% popularity among all voters, which led some media outlets to call her "the most popular governor in America." A poll taken in late September 2008 after Palin was named to the national Republican ticket showed her popularity in Alaska at 68%.

Palin declared that top priorities of her administration would be resource development, education and workforce development, public health and safety, and transportation and infrastructure development. She had championed ethics reform throughout her election campaign. Her first legislative action after taking office was to push for a bipartisan ethics reform bill. She signed the resulting legislation in July 2007, calling it a "first step", and declaring that she remained determined to clean up Alaska politics.

Palin tries out the Engagement Skills Trainer, July 24, 2007.

Palin has sometimes broken with the state Republican establishment. For example, she endorsed Sean Parnell's bid to unseat the state's longtime at-large U.S. Representative, Don Young. Palin has publicly challenged Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the ongoing federal investigation into his financial dealings. Shortly before his July 2008 indictment, she held a joint news conference with Stevens, described by The Washington Post as needed "to make clear she had not abandoned him politically."

Palin promoted oil and natural gas resource development in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Proposals to drill for oil in ANWR have been the subject of a national debate.

In 2006, Palin obtained a passport and in 2007 traveled for the first time outside of North America on a trip to Kuwait. There she visited the Khabari Alawazem Crossing at the Kuwait–Iraq border and met with members of the Alaska National Guard at several bases. On her return trip to the U.S., she visited injured soldiers in Germany.

Budget, spending, and federal funds

Governor Palin in Germany, July 2007

In June 2007, Palin signed a record $6.6 billion operating budget into law. At the same time, she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the construction budget in state history. The $237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the construction budget to $1.6 billion. In 2008, Palin vetoed $286 million, cutting or reducing funding for 350 projects from the FY09 capital budget.

Palin followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet, a purchase made by the Murkowski administration for $2.7 million in 2005 against the wishes of the legislature. In August 2007, the jet was listed on eBay, but the sale fell through, and the plane was later sold for $2.1 million through a private brokerage firm.

Expense reimbursements

Palin lives in Juneau during the legislative session and lives in Wasilla and works out of offices in Anchorage the rest of the year. Since the office in Anchorage is far from Juneau, while she works there, state officials say she is legally entitled to a $58 per diem travel allowance, which she has taken (a total of $16,951), and to reimbursement for hotels, which she has not, choosing instead to drive about 50 miles to her home in Wasilla. She also chose not to use the former governor's private chef. Democrats criticized Palin for taking the per diem and $43,490 in travel expenses for the times her family accompanied her on state business. In response, the governor's staffers said that these practices were in line with state policy, that Palin's gubernatorial expenses are 80% below those of her predecessor, Frank Murkowski, and that "many of the hundreds of invitations Palin receives include requests for her to bring her family, placing the definition of 'state business' with the party extending the invitation."

Federal funding

In her State of the State Address on January 17, 2008, Palin declared that the people of Alaska "can and must continue to develop our economy, because we cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government [funding]." Alaska's federal congressional representatives cut back on pork-barrel project requests during Palin's time as governor; despite this, in 2008 Alaska was still the largest per-capita recipient of federal earmarks, requesting nearly $750 million in special federal spending over a period of two years.

While there is no sales tax or income tax in Alaska, state revenues doubled to $10 billion in 2008. For the 2009 budget, Palin gave a list of 31 proposed federal earmarks or requests for funding, totaling $197 million, to Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. Palin’s decreasing support for federal funding has been a leading source of friction between herself and the state's congressional delegation; Palin has requested less in federal funding each year than her predecessor Frank Murkowski requested in his last year.

Bridge to Nowhere and Knik Arm Bridge

See also: Gravina Island Bridge and Knik Arm Bridge

See also: Use of "Bridge to Nowhere" in 2008 campaign

In 2005, before Palin was elected governor, Congress passed a $442-million earmark for constructing two Alaska bridges as part of an omnibus spending bill. The Gravina Island Bridge was proposed to connect Ketchikan to sparsely populated Gravina Island where an international airport serves over 200,000 passengers per year and the existing ferry carries 400,000 passengers per year. The Knik Arm Bridge (also known as "Don Young's Way" after Alaska's Congressman Don Young) was to provide an alternate link between heavily-populated Anchorage and Wasilla, 44 miles away. The Gravina Island Bridge proposal became nicknamed the "Bridge to Nowhere" because of the island's population of fifty people. More rarely, the term "Bridges to Nowhere" has been applied to both bridge proposals. Critics of the two bridge proposals gave them national attention as symbols of pork-barrel spending, and Congress responded to the intense criticism by stripping the earmark from the bill before final passage in November 2005 and instead giving the $442 million to Alaska as transportation money with no strings attached.

Sarah Palin holds up a t-shirt reading "Nowhere Alaska 99901" while visiting Ketchikan during her Gubernatorial campaign in 2006; the zip code for the area is 99901.

In 2006, Palin ran for governor with a "build-the-bridge" plank in her platform, saying she would "not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project [...] into something that's so negative." Palin criticized the use of the word "nowhere" as insulting to local residents and urged speedy work on building the infrastructure "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

As governor Palin canceled the Gravina Island Bridge in September 2007, saying that Congress had "little interest in spending any more money" due to what she called "inaccurate portrayals of the projects." She opted not to return the $442 million in federal transportation funds. Palin maintained her support for a controversial highway on the bridgeless Gravina Island, committing $25 million in federal funds to the project saying through her spokesperson that it would open territory for development. Alaska state officials said if the money were not used for the road it would have had to have been returned to the federal government. She also directed state officials to explore other ways to provide access to the island.

Later, as a vice-presidential candidate, Palin characterized her position as having told Congress "thanks, but no thanks, on that bridge to nowhere." This angered some Alaskans in Ketchikan, who said that the claim was false and a betrayal of Palin's previous support for their community. Meanwhile, some critics complained that this statement was misleading, since she had repeatedly expressed support for the spending project and even kept the Federal money after the project was canceled. Palin continues to support the Knik Arm project.

Gas pipeline

See also: Alaska Gas Pipeline

In August 2008, Palin signed a bill authorizing the State of Alaska to award TransCanada Pipelines — the sole bidder to meet the state's requirements — a license to build and operate a pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope to the Continental United States through Canada. The governor also pledged $500 million in seed money to support the project. It is estimated that the project will cost $26 billion. Newsweek described the project as "the principal achievement of Sarah Palin's term as Alaska's governor," but it faces legal challenges from Canadian First Nations (aboriginal peoples).

Predator control

Main article: Palin's Predator control policy

In 2007, Palin supported a 2003 Alaska Department of Fish and Game policy allowing the hunting of wolves from the air as part of a predator control program intended to increase moose and caribou populations for subsistence-food gatherers and other hunters. In March 2007, Palin's office announced that a bounty of $150 per wolf would be paid to the 180 volunteer pilots and gunners, to offset fuel costs. Wildlife activists sued the state, and a state judge declared the bounty illegal on the basis that a bounty would have to be offered by the Board of Game and not by the Department of Fish and Game.

Public Safety Commissioner dismissal

Main article: Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal

Palin dismissed Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan on July 11, 2008, citing performance-related issues, such as not being "a team player on budgeting issues." Monegan said that he had resisted persistent pressure from the Governor, her husband, and her staff, including State Attorney General Talis Colberg, to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten; Wooten was involved in a child custody battle with Palin’s sister that included an alleged death threat against Palin's father. Monegan stated he learned an internal investigation had found all but two of the allegations to be unsubstantiated, and Wooten had been disciplined for the others—an illegal moose killing and the tasering of an 11-year-old. He told the Palins that there was nothing he could do because the matter was closed. When contacted by the press for comment, Monegan first acknowledged pressure to fire Wooten but said that he could not be certain that his own firing was connected to that issue; he later asserted that the dispute over Wooten was a major reason for his firing. Palin stated on July 17 that Monegan was not pressured to fire Wooten, nor dismissed for not doing so. Monegan's replacement resigned on July 25, amid charges of sexual harassment in his previous job.

Legislative investigation

On August 1, the Republican-dominated Alaska Legislature hired an investigator, Stephen Branchflower, to review the Monegan dismissal. Legislators stated that Palin had the legal authority to fire Monegan, but they wanted to know whether her action had been motivated by anger at Monegan for not firing Wooten. The atmosphere was bipartisan and Palin pledged to cooperate. After she ordered her own internal investigation, Palin stated on August 13 that "pressure could have been perceived to exist, although I have only now become aware of it." Palin announced that officials had contacted Monegan or his staff about two dozen times regarding Wooten, that she had only known about some of those contacts, that many of those contacts were appropriate, and that she had not fired Monegan because of Wooten, who remained employed as a state trooper. She placed an aide on paid leave due to one tape-recorded phone conversation that she deemed improper, in which the aide appeared to be acting on her behalf and complained to a trooper that Wooten had not been fired.

Several weeks after the start of what the media referred to as "troopergate", Palin was chosen as John McCain's running mate. In a news story published on September 2, the state senator running the investigation complained that Palin's hiring of private lawyers hampered the investigation, and suggested that the results of the investigation were "likely to be damaging to the Governor's administration." On September 1, Palin asked the legislature to drop its investigation, saying that the state Personnel Board had jurisdiction over ethics issues. The Personnel Board's three members were first appointed by Palin’s predecessor, and Palin reappointed one member in 2008. On September 19, the Governor's husband and several state employees refused to honor subpoenas, the validity of which were disputed by Talis Colberg, Palin's appointee as Alaska's Attorney General. On October 2, a court rejected Colberg's challenge to the subpoenas, and seven of the witnesses, not including Sarah and Todd Palin, eventually testified.

Branchflower Report

Main article: Branchflower Report

On October 10, 2008, the Alaska Legislative Council unanimously voted to release, without endorsing, the Branchflower Report, in which Stephen Branchflower found that firing Monegan "was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority," but that Palin abused her power as governor and violated the state's Executive Branch Ethics Act when her office pressured Monegan to fire Wooten . The report stated that "Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired." The report also said that Palin "permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor's office [...] to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired."

On October 11, Palin's attorneys responded, condemning the Branchflower Report as "misleading and wrong on the law"; one, Thomas Van Flein, said that it was an attempt to "smear the governor by innuendo." Van Flein further argues that Branchflower's findings are flawed because Palin received "no monetary benefit" from her actions.

Palin said that she was "very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of any kind of unethical activity there". Among the commentators disputing her interpretation was a columnist for The Washington Post:

"Whether or not the Branchflower report -- which was launched by a bipartisan committee -- was a partisan smear job is debatable. What is not debatable is that the report clearly states that she violated the State Ethics Act. Palin has reasonable grounds for arguing that the report cleared her of 'legal wrongdoing,' since she did have the authority to fire Monegan. But it is the reverse of the truth to claim that she was cleared of "any hint of any kind of unethical activity."

Another view was expressed in McClatchy's Kansascity.com, The Kansas City Star: "It’s just Steve Branchflower’s opinion that he thinks Governor Palin had, at worst, mixed motives for an action that even Branchflower admits she unquestionably had both the complete right to perform and other very good reasons to perform."

State Personnel Board investigation

The State Personnel Board (SPB) reviewed the matter at Palin's request. On September 15, the Anchorage law firm of Clapp, Peterson, Van Flein, Tiemessen & Thorsness filed arguments of "no probable cause" with the SPB on behalf of Palin. The SPB hired independent counsel Timothy Petumenos as an investigator. Mr. Petumenos describes himself as a "loyal Democrat" according to the Washington Post. On October 24, Palin gave three hours of depositions with the Board in St. Louis, Missouri. On November 3, Petumenos found that there was no probable cause to believe Palin or any other state official had violated state ethical standards.

2008 vice-presidential campaign

Main article: John McCain presidential campaign, 2008

See also: Republican Party (United States) vice presidential candidates, 2008

Palin addresses the 2008 Republican National Convention

On August 29, 2008, in Dayton, Ohio, Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced that he had chosen Palin as his running mate. According to Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for John McCain, he first met Palin at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington in February 2008 and came away "extraordinarily impressed." He called Palin on August 24 to discuss the possibility of having her join him on the ticket. On August 27, she visited McCain's vacation home near Sedona, Arizona, where she was offered the position of vice-presidential candidate. Palin was the only prospective running mate who had a face-to-face interview with McCain to discuss joining the ticket that week. Nonetheless, Palin's selection was a surprise to many as speculation had centered on other candidates, such as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, United States Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.

Palin is the first Alaskan and the second woman to run on a major U.S. party ticket. The first woman was Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1984, who ran with former vice-president Walter Mondale. On September 3, 2008, Palin delivered a 40-minute acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention that was well-received and watched by more than 40 million viewers.

Several conservative commentators met Palin in the summer of 2007 when they sailed on cruises that docked in Juneau. Some of them, such as Bill Kristol, urged McCain to pick Palin, arguing that her presence on the ticket would provide a boost in enthusiasm among the religious right wing of the Republican party, while her status as an unknown on the national scene would also be a positive factor for McCain's campaign.

Since Palin was largely unknown outside Alaska before her selection by McCain, her personal life, positions, and political record drew intense media attention and scrutiny. Some Republicans felt that Palin was being subjected to unreasonable media coverage, a sentiment Palin noted in her acceptance speech. A poll taken immediately after the Republican convention found that slightly more than half of Americans believed that the media was "trying to hurt" Palin with negative coverage.

The Palins and McCains in Fairfax, Virginia, September 2008.

During the campaign, controversy erupted over alleged differences between Palin's positions as a gubernatorial candidate and her position as a vice-presidential candidate. After McCain announced Palin as his running mate, Newsweek and Time put Palin on their magazine covers, as some of the media alleged that McCain's campaign was restricting press access to Palin by allowing only three one-on-one interviews and no press conferences with her. Among the news organizations that criticized the restrictions were Palin's first major interview, with Charles Gibson of ABC News, met with mixed reviews. Her interview five days later with Fox News's Sean Hannity focused on many of the same questions from Gibson's interview. However, Palin's performance in her third interview, with Katie Couric of CBS News, was widely criticized, prompting a decline in her poll numbers, concern among Republicans that she was becoming a political liability, and calls from some conservative commentators for Palin to resign from the Presidential ticket. Other conservatives remained ardent in their support for Palin, accusing the columnists of elitism. Following this interview, some Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol, questioned the McCain campaign's strategy of sheltering Palin from unscripted encounters with the press.

Palin was reported to have prepared intensively for the October 2 vice-presidential debate with Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden at Washington University in St. Louis. Some Republicans suggested that Palin's performance in the interviews would improve public perceptions of her debate performance by lowering expectations. Polling from CNN, Fox and CBS found that while Palin exceeded most voters' expectations, they felt that Biden had won the debate.

Upon returning to the campaign trail after her debate preparation, Palin stepped up her attacks on the Democratic candidate for President, Senator Barack Obama. At a fundraising event, Palin explained her new aggressiveness, saying, "There does come a time when you have to take the gloves off and that time is right now." In a series of campaign rallies, Palin returned to the vice presidential candidate's traditional role of attack dog, lashing out at and criticizing the Democratic ticket.

Palin appeared on the television show Saturday Night Live on October 18. Prior to her appearance on the show, she had been parodied several times by Tina Fey, who was noted for her physical resemblance to the candidate. In the weeks leading up to the election, Palin had also been the subject of numerous other parodies.

The election took place on November 4, and Obama was projected as the winner at 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. In his concession speech McCain thanked Palin, calling her "one of the best campaigners I've ever seen, and an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength."

Personal life

In 1988, she eloped with her childhood sweetheart Todd Palin. According to her mother, she believed that her parents "couldn't afford a big white wedding." Todd Palin works for the London-based oil company BP as an oil-field production operator and owns a commercial fishing business. The Palins have an estimated combined net worth of over $1 million.

Palin family members at the announcement of her vice-presidential selection, August 29, 2008. From left to right: Todd, Piper, Willow, Bristol and Trig.

Palin describes herself as a hockey mom. The Palins have five children: sons Track (b. 1989) and Trig (b. 2008), and daughters Bristol (b. 1990), Willow (b. 1995), and Piper (b. 2001). Track enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 11, 2007, and was subsequently assigned to an infantry brigade. He and his unit deployed to Iraq in September 2008 for 12 months. On September 1, 2008, Palin announced that Bristol was five months pregnant and that she intends to keep the baby and marry Levi Johnston, the father of the child. Palin's youngest child, Trig, was prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome.

Palin was born into a Roman Catholic family. Later, her family joined the Wasilla Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church, which she attended until 2002. Palin then switched to the Wasilla Bible Church because, she said, she preferred the children's ministries offered there. When in Juneau, she attends the Juneau Christian Center. Her current home church is the Wasilla Bible Church, an independent congregation. Palin described herself in an interview as a "Bible-believing Christian." After the Republican National Convention, a spokesperson for the McCain campaign told CNN that Palin "doesn't consider herself Pentecostal" and has "deep religious convictions."

Political positions

Main article: Political positions of Sarah Palin

Palin has been a registered Republican since 1982, and has described the Republican Party platform as "the right agenda for America". She is a social conservative, and has deep religious convictions. According to Mary Glazier, an ordained minister who helped bring together the prayer networks in Alaska, Palin was an active member of Glazier's prayer group in Wasilla when God "began to speak" to her about going into politics. In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, responding to a question asking the candidates whether they would support teaching creationism in public schools, Palin stated that she supported teaching both creationism and evolution. Shortly after that debate, however, Palin said in an interview that she had only meant to say she supports allowing the discussion of creationism in public schools, but says it does not have to be part of the curriculum. She supports sex education in public schools that encourages abstinence but also discusses birth control.

Palin opposes same-sex marriage and supported a non-binding referendum for an Alaskan constitutional amendment to deny state health benefits to same-sex couples; however, early in her gubernatorial term she vetoed such a bill, citing its current unconstitutionality. Palin has called herself "as pro-life as any candidate can be" and has called abortion an "atrocity." Palin has stated that abortion should be banned in nearly all cases, including rape and incest, except if the life of the mother is endangered. Palin has stated that she does not support embryonic stem cell research. A lifetime member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), she believes the right to bear arms includes handgun possession, and is against a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons. She has supported gun safety education for youth. She supports capital punishment.

Palin has promoted oil and natural gas resource exploration in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. On global warming, Palin said that "a changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made." She later said that "man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue" and that "John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it."

Regarding foreign policy, Palin supports the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq, but is concerned that "dependence on foreign energy" may be obstructing efforts to "have an exit plan in place". Palin supports preemptive military action in the face of an imminent threat, and supports U.S. military operations in Pakistan. She declined to give a yes or no answer regarding whether U.S. military forces should make cross-border attacks into Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government. She supports NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, and affirms that if Russia invaded a NATO member, the United States should meet its treaty obligations.

Public image

Main article: Public image and reception of Sarah Palin

Before the Republican National Convention (RNC), a Gallup poll found that Palin had "the lowest rating any running mate has had since then-Indiana Senator Dan Quayle was selected in 1988 to join George H.W. Bush's team." Over half of the poll respondents had never heard of her. Following the RNC, Palin's image came under close media scrutiny, particularly regarding her socially conservative political preferences. Her perceived lack of experience in foreign and domestic politics came under fire from conservative columnists Charles Krauthammer, Kathleen Parker and George Will, and Republicans such as former Bush speechwriter David Frum. Former Secretary of State General Colin Powell gave her inexperience in foreign and domestic policy as one reason for his endorsement of Obama.

In contrast, William Kristol of the Weekly Standard wrote: "There she is: a working woman who's a proud wife and mother; a traditionalist in important matters who's broken through all kinds of barriers; a reformer who's a Republican; a challenger of a corrupt good-old-boy establishment who's a conservative; a successful woman whose life is unapologetically grounded in religious belief; a lady who's a leader."

During the 2008 elections, some media outlets repeated Palin's statement that she "stood up to Big Oil" when she resigned after just 11 months as the head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission because of abuses she witnessed involving other Republican commissioners and their ties to energy companies and energy lobbyists, and again when she raised taxes on oil companies as governor. In turn, others have said that she is a "friend of Big Oil" due to her advocacy of oil exploitation, including her push to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and an effort to de-list the polar bear as an endangered species, since this could hinder oil searching. The National Organization for Women, which endorsed Obama, made clear that it would not support Palin simply for being a woman, and made its support for her opponent publicly known. The National Rifle Association said nothing specific about Palin's position on gun legislation, but concluded that she would be "one of the most pro-gun vice-presidents in American history."

External links

• Official Campaign Website for McCain/Palin 2008
• Alaska Office of Governor Sarah Palin
• Profile at Vote Smart
• Ongoing news and commentary from The Anchorage Daily News
• Ongoing news and commentary from The New York Times
• Sarah Palin rumor control from Snopes
• Republican Convention Spin and Sliming Palin rumor control from FactCheck.org
• Sarah Palin at Curlie
• NOW: Meet Sarah Palin video from PBS
• Full Excerpts: Charlie Gibson Interviews GOP Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin from ABC News, September 2008
• One-On-One with Sarah Palin transcripts and videos from CBS News with Katie Couric, September 2008
• Stephen Branchflower Report to the Legislative Council October 10, 2008
• Monica Davey, For the love of a good fight from the New York Times, October 25, 2008

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