Sarah Palin

Sarah Louise Heath Palin (born February 11, 1964) is the governor of Alaska and the Republican vice-presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential election.

She was a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996 and 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 the incumbent governor in the Republican primary and a former two-term Democratic governor in the general election. She is the youngest person to have been elected to the position, and Alaska's first female governor.

On August 29, 2008, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain announced he had chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate. She was nominated at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Palin is the first woman and the first Alaskan to run on the Republican Party's presidential ticket.

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. Her father is descended from English and German settlers. The family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. As a child, she would sometimes go moose hunting with her father before school, and the family regularly ran 5 km and 10 km races.

Palin attended Wasilla High School in Wasilla, located 29 miles (47 km) north of the city 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. She helped the team win the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds of the game, despite having an ankle stress fracture. She earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play.

In 1982, Palin enrolled at Hawaii Pacific University but left after her first semester. From there she transferred to North Idaho College, where she spent two semesters as a general studies major. From there, she then transferred to the University of Idaho for two semesters. During this time Palin won the Miss Wasilla Pageant beauty contest, then finished third (second runner-up) in the Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality" award. She then left the University of Idaho and attended Matanuska-Susitna 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 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.

2008 Vice-presidential campaign

On August 29, 2008, in Dayton, Ohio, Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, announced that he had chosen Palin as his running mate. McCain met Palin in a February National Governors Association, and it is reported that she made a favorable impression on McCain. He called Palin on August 24 to discuss the possibility of having her join him on the ticket. On August 27, Palin 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 second woman to run on a major U.S. party ticket. The first 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 watched by more than 40 million viewers and was well-received by the crowd.

In her nomination acceptance speech and on the campaign trail, Palin has often said: "I told the Congress 'thanks, but no thanks,' on that Bridge to Nowhere." Although Palin was originally a main proponent of the Gravina Island Bridge, McCain-Palin television advertisements claim Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere." These claims have been widely questioned or described as misleading or exaggerations by "virtually every media group in the US." Newsweek remarked: "Now she talks as if she always opposed the funding."

In September 2008, a hacker accessed a Yahoo! email account Palin uses, hoping to "derail her campaign," and precipitating an investigation by the FBI and Secret Service.