Sarah Palin life and biography

Sarah Palin is an American politician and commentator. She was the youngest person and the first woman elected Governor of Alaska, an office she held from December 2006 until her resignation in July 2009. In the 2008 presidential election, she was the Republican Party nominee for Vice President, becoming the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and the first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency. She has subsequently associated herself with the Tea Party movement, endorsing and campaigning for several candidates in the 2010 midterm elections. Sarah is a possible candidate in the 2012 presidential election.

Her book Going Rogue has sold more than two million copies. Since January 2010, she has also provided political commentary for Fox News, and hosted a television show, Sarah Palin's Alaska.

Born Sarah Louise Heath on February 11, 1964, in Sandpoint, Idaho. At the age of three months, she moved to Alaska when her parents came to teach school in Skagway in southeast Alaska. Sarah Palin's father, Charles, was a science teacher and track coach. Her mother, Sally, was a school secretary. Palin grew up in the small town of Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage. In 1982, she played on Wasilla High School's state champion girls' basketball team, picking up the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" for her intense playing style. An outdoors enthusiast, Palin grew up as an avid hunter and a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, eating moose hamburgers and riding snowmobiles.

After graduating from Wasilla High in 1982, Sarah Palin wore the crown of Miss Wasilla in 1984 and was the runner-up in the Miss Alaska contest. She went on to earn a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho in 1987. She also became a television sports reporter in Anchorage.

Palin eloped with her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin, on August 29, 1988, and helped run his family's commercial fishing business after their marriage. Todd, who is part Yu'pik Eskimo, also worked for BP at a Prudhoe Bay processing facility. He took leave from the company when his wife became governor to avoid a potential conflict of interest. Throughout their marriage Palin and her husband had five children: Bristol, Willow, Piper, Track and Trig.

In 1992, Palin decided to enter the political arena. Running as on the Republican ticket, she won a seat on the Wasilla City Council by opposing tax hikes and, four years later, she was elected mayor of Wasilla, knocking off three-term incumbent John Stein 651 to 440. As mayor, Palin cut property taxes and reduced spending. She also raised the city sales tax by half of a percent in order to build a popular sports complex and put more money into public safety. Mayor Palin also effectively used the system of congressional earmarks, collecting $26.9 million in such funding, according the independent watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Palin ran her first statewide campaign in 2002 in a bid for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, but lost by fewer than 2,000 votes. Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski appointed Sarah Palin to chair the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003. She resigned a year later in protest over what she perceived to be the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, including Republican Party Chair Randy Ruedrich. In 2006, Palin won the Republican primary for Governor, defeating Murkowski. She went on to win the general election in November 2006 by defeating former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles, 49 percent to 41 percent. With her election, Palin made history as the first female governor, as well as the youngest governor, of Alaska. She was also the state's first governor to be born after Alaska achieved statehood in 1959.

While running for governor, Palin supported the so-called "bridge to nowhere," a $400 million plan to build a bridge in a remote Alaskan community. Palin said the bridge was essential for local prosperity, but once she became governor she turned against it, citing rising costs and other priorities. "I told Congress thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere up in Alaska," Palin said. "If we wanted a bridge we'll build it ourselves."

With an emphasis on ethics and openness in government, Palin's administration focused on education, public safety and transportation. As a conservative Protestant, she also served as an advocate for pro-life policies; expressed her disapproval of embryonic stem cell research; pushed the belief that creationism, the idea that life was created by a deity, should be taught in public schools alongside the evolution curriculum; and supported Alaska's decision to amend its constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

On the energy front, Palin questioned the validity behind the idea that global warming is man-made. She intensely pursued a pipeline to deliver natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to market. In the summer of 2008, the state legislature approved her plan to give a $500 million subsidy to TransCanada, a Canadian company, to help build the project. She also passed a major tax increase on state oil production, promising to give some of that money back to Alaskans in the form of a $1,200 check.

While very popular—The Anchorage Daily News has called her "the Joan of Arc of Alaska politics" and " one of the most popular local politicians in America"—Palin did not serve without controversy. The Alaska Legislature hired independent investigator Stephen Branchflower to examine the actions of Governor Palin in August 2008 after the dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. While Palin had the authority to fire Monegan, the former commissioner claimed that Palin let him go because she was angry that he did not fire Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law. Palin denied any wrongdoing, saying Monegan was "insubordinate" in disputes over budget issues, and that he engaged in "egregious rogue behavior." The Branchflower Report, which was released in October 2008, stated that Palin did not break the law, but did abuse her power as governor and violated the state's ethics act. In November of that same year, after Palin gave her deposition, the State of Alaska Personnel Board reported that there was no cause to believe Palin had violated ethics standards.

While embroiled in political scandal back home, Palin emerged as a national person of interest when John McCain picked the governor to be his Vice Presidential running mate on August 29, 2008. He formally introduced her during a campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio, and was nominated on September 4 at the Republican National Convention. With her nomination, Palin became the second woman to run for Vice President on a U.S. major party ticket, and the first Republican female to do so.

Palin's interview was placed under intense scrutiny, and the candidate received mixed reviews by political pundits. Of particular concern was Palin's foreign policy experience, and her ability to take over as president should anything happen to McCain. The Washington Post found her comments "strikingly devoid of the diplomatic language generally used by US officials when discussing relations with Russia." This criticism only deepened when, during an interview in Fairbanks, Alaska, Palin acknowledged that she had never met a leader of a foreign country and that she had visited only Canada and Mexico before a 2007 trip to Kuwait and Germany to visit U.S. troops.

The Los Angeles Times pointed out that Palin also reversed her stance on climate change, when she said "I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change ... Regardless of the reason for climate change, whether it's entirely, wholly caused by man's activities or is part of the cyclical nature of our planet—the warming and the cooling trends—regardless of that, John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it, and we have to make sure that we're doing all we can to cut down on pollution." But "less than a year ago, she said the opposite," the Times said. She cited her involvement in energy issues in oil-rich Alaska as a national security credential and added that she saw energy as a foundation of national security. On the issue of energy, Palin renewed her support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, despite McCain's opposition. But she appeared to do a sharp turn towards McCain's view on the role humans play in climate change.

There was additional concern that she didn't know enough about government policies when she failed to understand a question about the Bush Doctrine, a phrase commonly used to describe the foreign policy of the Bush administration. "Granted, this might not be something that your average hockey mom would know," The New York Times later commented, "but it probably is something that a commander-in-chief-in-waiting might have considered."

As she engaged in more interviews, the media—and the public—became more dubious of Paliln's credentials. Palin's performance in an interview with Katie Couric was widely criticized; publications such as The Huffington Post cited the candidate's inability to cite examples of John McCain's support for financial regulation. ("I'll try to find some [examples] and bring them to you," she told Couric.) After this interview, Palinl's poll numbers steeply declined, and many Republicans expressed concern that she was becoming a political liability for McCain.

In addition to her hurdles as a public speaker, Palin also faced a public image crisis when her teenage daughter, Bristol, announced that she was pregnant out of wedlock. Palin's pro-life stance made an example out of her daughter and, on September 1, 2008, during the 2008 Republican National Convention, it was announced that Bristol was pregnant and engaged to the baby's father, Levi Johnston. Johnston denied that he was pressured into the wedding, telling reporters that he and Bristol "were planning on getting married a long time ago with or without the kid. That was the plan from the start."

On July 3, 2009, Sarah Palin announced her resignation as governor, however, and fuelled speculation that she planned to run for president in 2012. She cited the ethics complaints, a series of financially draining lawsuits, and a desire not to become a lame duck governor as a few of the many reasons for her resignation. Shortly after leaving office, Palin published her autobiography, Going Rogue: An American Life (2010). The book became an instant success, selling more than two million copies. That same year, she signed a long-term contract to be a political commentator for the Fox News Channel and penned a deal for her own television show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, on the TLC network. The reality show, which chronicled Palin's travels through the Alaska wilderness, garnered 5 million viewers—a record number for the network. Despite the show's popularity, TLC announced that they would not be renewing Palin's contract for a second season. This renewed speculation that Palin planned to run for President in 2012.

After she stepped down from political office, Palin became associated with the Tea Party movement, a generally conservative and libertarian group that endorsed reduced government spending, lower taxes, and a closer adherence to the original U.S. Constitution. She endorsed a handful of successful Tea Party candidates in the 2010 mid-term elections, and also launched the "Pink Elephant Movement", which she started as a way to endorse female GOP candidates.

Palin authored a second book, America by Heart, which was released in November 2010.

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