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StumbleuponSenator's pick known as a maverick
Gov. Sarah Palin is a sportswoman who enjoys 80 percent approval ratings in Alaska.
More from McCain's Dayton visit and VP announcement:
> McCain's VP pick wows local crowd
> Senator's pick known as maverick
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> Photos: McCain's visit | Gov. Sarah Palin | Spotted at the Nutter
> Videos: Palin's speech | Nutter Center rally
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Saturday, August 30, 2008
WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin, then eight months pregnant, was in Texas for a Republican Governors Association conference in April when she began showing early signs of labor.
She called her doctor for advice, then gave her keynote luncheon address and took the first flight back to Alaska.
Her fifth child, Trig, a boy, was born the next day.
Three days later, the Anchorage Daily News reported, Palin was back at work as governor of the nation's largest state.
Gritty and determined, a sportswoman whose official Web site shows a picture of her holding a caribou she apparently hunted, Palin enjoys overwhelmingly popularity in Alaska, where her approval ratings hover in the astronomical 80 percent range.
But whether John McCain's surprise pick for a running mate will play out on the national stage is to be seen.
"She is the ultimate high-risk, high reward pick," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Palin is fairly new to the gubernatorial job — she took office Dec. 4, 2006 — but has already seen political success, pushing and getting momentum on the creation of a natural gas pipeline that Alaskans have sought for three decades.
She's also knocked heads with energy companies, threatening to strip some of their leases if she felt they were "warehousing" their land and not drilling, according to Drue Pearce, a former Alaska Senate president now serving as the federal coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Project.
"She is willing to take on the industry which provides 85 percent of her state's revenue," Pearce said.
Palin is not without critics.
Alaska conservative talk radio host Rick Rydell said that while Palin is a social conservative, fiscally "she embodies the term 'tax and spend liberal.'"
"I think it's very scary to have someone with such a lack of knowledge and experience of budgets, of legislative and parliamentary procedure, of the economy and of business to be one heartbeat away from the presidency," he said. "Especially for someone who would be the oldest person to take the seat in history."
McCain, who turned 72 Friday, would be the oldest first term president if he is elected.
Palin, 44, already has made history. She is both the first woman and the youngest person to hold the Alaska governorship. She is the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket, and if elected, would be the first female vice president. She is pro-life, and was celebrated in the anti-abortion movement when she refused to consider an abortion after learning Trig was likely to have Down syndrome.
People have marveled at how well she has juggled her public and private life as a mother of five children, including one with special needs.
Pearce describes Palin as "bright, tough, fair, a good governor," but also someone who brings a unique perspective to her role.
Her husband, Todd, is a blue-collar worker on the North Slope, working as a production operator for BP Oil, Pearce said. He also works as a commercial fisherman in the summers and is a champion snowmobile racer.
They were sweethearts in high school, where Sarah earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" for her tenaciousness on the basketball court. The nickname, in political circles, has lingered, particularly after hard-charging beginnings in Alaska state politics.
In 2004, she resigned from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after complaining to the office of Gov. Frank Murkowski and to state Attorney General Gregg Renkes about the ethical violations of a fellow Republican commissioner, Randy Ruedrich. He later agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking state ethics laws.
In 2005, she joined up with a Democrat to lodge an ethics complaint against Renkes, a Republican. Renkes resigned a few weeks later.
However, she hasn't escaped scrutiny: The Alaska Senate recently approved the hiring of an independent investigator to look into whether Palin used her office to try to fire her former brother-in-law from a state trooper position.
Palin played point guard on Wasilla, Alaska's, 1982 state championship girls basketball team, became Miss Wasilla in 1984 and was a runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant that year, according to the Almanac of American Politics.
Her political career began in 1992, when she won a seat on the Wasilla City Council. Four years later, she beat a three-term incumbent to become the mayor of Wasilla, population 6,700. In 2005, she beat Murkowski in a three-way gubernatorial primary, paving the way for her successful general election.
Pearce said Palin kept her pregnancy with Trig private until about 60 days before he was born.
"She keeps her own counsel," she said. "She listens to her advisers, but makes her own decisions. She does not second-guess herself."
