Wonkette calls her "The nation's hottest governor." I can't remember a GOP candidate who has been described as "sexy and hot."
Back in June Bill Kristol predicted McCain would choose her. He also said gasoline prices would plummet if McCain did.
Palin is a self-described hockey mom (the Alaska version of soccer mom).
Palin once wrote in the
Anchorage Daily News, "The only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick."
This is a "meet Sarah Palin" campaign ad that she ran when she ran for governor.
She says she
is not convinced that global warming is caused by humans.
She sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in an effort to reverse the federal government's listing of polar bears as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
Here is the Web site of
Andrew Halcro, the guy who ran against Palin.
See Gov. Palin talking about Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In this video, she strongly endorses "opening" ANWR to drilling.
Right after she won the job as governor, she sold a state jet purchased by her predecessor.
The plane was listed on eBay, of all places. She also fired the governor's mansion executive chef because she said she and her husband could handle the cooking just fine.
We should have known she was running for something --
she has a new book written about her: "Sarah, How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down"
The book includes this passage:
Born in Sandpoint, Idaho, on February 11, 1964, Sarah Louise was the third of four children born in rapid succession to Chuck and Sally Heath. The family moved to Alaska when Sarah was two months old. Chuck took a teaching job in Skagway. Her older brother, Chuck Jr., was two years old. Heather had just turned one, and Molly was soon to come. Chuck Jr. vividly remembers the days in Skagway when he and his dad ran a trapline, put out crab pots, and hunted mountain goats and seals. The family spent time hiking up to alpine lakes and looking for artifacts left behind during the Klondike Gold Rush. ...
In 1969, the Heaths moved to southcentral Alaska, living for a short time with friends in Anchorage, then for two years in Eagle River before finally settling in Wasilla. The family lived frugally. To help make ends meet, Chuck Heath moonlighted as a hunting and fishing guide and as a bartender, and even worked on the Alaska Railroad for a time. Sally worked as a school secretary and ran their busy household.
A book reviewer said:
When Palin married her high-school beau, Todd Palin, in 1988, they eloped -- snagging two residents of a nearby nursing home to serve as their witnesses for the civil ceremony at the courthouse in Palmer, Alaska. They started their family about the same time Todd took a blue-collar job with British Petroleum on the North Slope.
The Palins named their first child, a boy, Track, after the track and field season in which he was born. Sarah's father jokingly asked what they would have named their son if he had been born during the basketball season. Without hesitating Sarah answered "Hoop."
And these passages from the reviewer and the book, which may say something about her:
After taking office, Sarah was dumbfounded by the inner workings of the city government. "Right away I saw that it was a good old boys network," she said. "Mayor Stein and [Councilman] Nick Carney told me, 'You'll learn quick, just listen to us.' Well, they didn't know how I was wired."
Within weeks, Palin had upset the status quo by voting against a pay raise for the mayor and an exclusive city-wide garbage pickup contract with Carney's company. But during her second term, she became convinced that she needed to throw the good-old-boy network out entirely -- so she decided to run for mayor herself in 1996, and she whipped the long-time incumbent handily.
As mayor, Palin took a voluntary pay cut from $68,000 to $64,200, cut real property taxes and eliminated taxes on personal property and business inventory, and sponsored a $5.5 million road and sewer bond to promote new commercial development. In 1999, Stein ran against her again, but she whipped him by an even larger margin than the first time. By then, she was attracting state-wide attention, which resulted in her being elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.
She has been a change agent. Sarah Palin supports moving the Legislative sessions out of Juneau -- the state Capital -- on occasion. Juneau is darn hard for most of the state's population to get to, so Palin suggested they take the government to the people.
You will occasionally
see photos of her sitting in her office with a big grizzly bear draped across her couch. The bear was reportedly shot by her father.
You don't often see governors
leaning on a Harley in publicity photos.And when is the last time you saw a govenror wearing a fur?
How many vice president candidates have ever started a dog-race?
(See video)In 2007, she visited Kuwait. See
lots of pictures from that trip.
Here is a picture of Palin when she was a high school basketball point guard. She is No. 22. She was known as "Sarah Barracuda."
