Sarah Palin

Sarah Heath Palin was born on February 11th, 1964. Later that year her parents moved to Alaska and eventually settled in Wasilla. After graduating from the University of Idaho in 1987, Sarah was a sports anchor and journalist for several Alaska TV stations and papers.

Sarah Palin entered politics in 1992 as a City Councilman for Wasilla and served from 1992 to1995, and one year of her second term before being elected as Mayor of Wasilla (population 6,300) in 1996. She served two terms, during which she used the 2% sales tax initiated by her predecessor to fund many projects and a reduction in property taxes.

After her two terms as Mayor, Palin took the post of Ethics Supervisor of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but resigned in 2004, less than a year later, in protest of the ‘lack of ethics’ shown by fellow Republican members.

After passing on a Senate run in 2004, Palin decided to run in the 2006 Alaska gubernatorial race on a platform of clean government. She won and was sworn in as Alaska s first female governor, as well as its youngest at 42. As governor, her most major achievement was the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA), which put a 1,715 mile natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the Continental US at an estimated cost of $26 billion dollars. She also put a measure in place, ACES, which put a tax on oil production profits, and worked on ethics reform issues.

In August of 2008, Palin was tapped by Republican presidential nominee John McCain to be his running mate. As she was not well known outside of her state, the selection was controversial. However, with her good looks, snappy sound bite retorts, and homespun manner, combined with her traditional conservative values, Palin quickly won over the Republican electorate and shored up the party base. Her less than stellar performance in interviews and her merely adequate performance during the vice presidential debates did not bring her support among the general public and the media, who claimed she was inexperienced and unprepared for the post.

After the election loss to the Democratic ticket of Obama/Biden, Sarah Palin laid low from the public eye, focusing on getting back to business in Alaska. Her fame, however, followed her home and showed no signs of diminishing, raising the question of a Palin run for president in 2012. The intense media scrutiny that began during the presidential race continued, creating negative publicity and a rash of ethics complaints against the Governor. Claiming to be tired of the stress of this negativity and believing it to be preventing her from performing her duties as governor, Palin held a press conference on July 3rd, 2009 announcing her decision to not seek re-election to the governor s office in 2010 and her intention to step down on July 26th, 2009, 18 months early.

An immediate frenzy of speculation, as yet unanswered by Palin, as to the real reasons why she stepped down has made her a major news story yet again. In looking at the impact her decision will have on her chances should she pursue the nomination in 2012, the reaction has been mixed. Some pundits have said her career is all but over. However, a poll taken by USA Today from among Republicans the week after the announcement show that over 70% would vote for her should she choose to run for president. Among her base, her leaving office early has done nothing to erode her popularity; in fact it has helped to cement her ‘maverick’ status.

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