Sarah Palin

Gov. Sarah Palin, October 2008

Sarah Louise Palin (born February 11, 1964, née Heath) is an American politician. She is the 11^th Alaska state governor, was the U.S. Republican Party's vice presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election. She has also been a chair of the Alaska Conservation Commission which regulates oil and gas, Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

On 3 July, 2009 Palin announced that she will step down as Governor of Alaska on 26 July, 2009. She remains an active public figure, with future political ambitions unstated; an immediately bestselling autobiography, Going Rogue: an American Life came out in November 2009, after many television interviews.

Personal Life

Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho but the family moved to Alaska when she was still a baby. Palin graduated in 1982 from Wasilla High School and received a bachelors degree from the University of Idaho in communications-journalism in 1987. She has lived in Skagway, Eagle River and Wasilla. She married Todd Palin and together they have five children: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig.

Palin attended Wasilla High School. She was active as an athlete in cross country running and a member of the basketball team, winning the Alaska state championship with her team in 1982.

She graduated from high school in 1982 and enrolled at Hawaii Pacific College in Honolulu. After one semester, she transferred to a community college in Idaho and then attended two semesters at North Idaho College. In 1984, she won the Miss Wasilla Pageant, then finished third in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant receiving a college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality" award.

In August 1984, Palin transferred to the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. After two semesters at UI, Palin returned to Alaska and attended Matanuska-Susitna College, a community college in Palmer, for one term in the fall of 1985. She returned to the University of Idaho in January 1986, where she spent three semesters completing her bachelor's degree in communications with an emphasis in journalism, graduating in May, 1987.

In 1988, Sarah Palin (Heath) married Todd Palin after they had eloped. They have five children, Track James Charles (born 1989), Bristol Sheeran Marie (born 1990), Willow Bianca Faye (born 1994), Piper Indy Grace (born 2001), and Trig Paxson Van (born 2008), and one grandson, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston (born out of wedlock 2008, son of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston).

Palin is a pentecostal evangelical Protestant, currently member in a non-denominational church. She has been associated with dominionism, and supports the teaching of creationism in public schools, although she has not pushed this during her governorship in Alaska.

Business Career

From 1987-1989, Palin worked as a sports reporter. She has owned two businesses, a commercial fishing business from 1988-2007 and a sport vehicle rental business from 1994-1999. She has also been part of two failed start-ups, a marketing business and a car wash, the latter of which she failed to disclose in gubernatorial disclosure filings.[2]

Early Political Activity

Wasilla City Council

Sarah Palin began her political career when she was elected to a three-year term as city councilor of Wasilla in 1992. She ran on a platform based on a newly proposed sales tax, the revenue of which she feared was going to be spent unwisely. She interestingly defended bar owners in the town against a measure to close Wasilla's bars at 2 a.m. rather than 4 a.m., something that surprised many people in the town, since at that time Palin belonged to a church that advocated abstinence from alcohol.

Mayor of Wasilla

She was reelected to a second term as city councilor in 1995, but she did not finish this term as she was elected mayor in 1996, defeating incumbent John Stein. She served two three-year terms as mayor (1996-2002). During her first term, she reorganized the city's administration, firing several department heads, including the police chief. She also reduced or eliminated several taxes, using revenue from a 2% sales tax that had been enacted before 1992. Palin was reelected to a second term against Stein in 1999 with 74% of the vote. She also became president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

Controversies

In October 1996, it was alleged she asked the city librarian Mary Ellen Emmons about removing books from the Wasilla city library that did not fit with Palin's religious views. Emmons reportedly responded that she would not agree to censorship in the library. In January 1997, Palin fired Emmons as well as Wasilla Police Chief Irl Stambaugh, citing lack of support for her policies. With regard to librarian Emmons, Palin made no reference to the question about censoring books. The following day, after a personal meeting with Emmons, Palin rescinded the firing of Emmons and declared that differences of opinion had been smoothed over. Palin has repeatedly commented that her inquiry was an abstract question about policy as a part of discussions with various department heads, without reference to any particular items in the library and she rejected the notion that she would let her personal religious views dictate such types of policy decisions. No items were ever removed from the library.

Police Chief Irl Stambaugh, who had supported her opponent in the recent mayoral elections, filed suit in federal court against Palin for wrongful termination, violation of his contract, and gender discrimination. In the trial, Stambaugh claimed that he had opposed a gun control bill that Palin supported. The judge did not rule on the merits of the case and dismissed the case, ruling that the police chief serves at the discretion of the mayor and can be terminated for practically any reason.

Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission

In 2002, after two terms as Wasilla mayor, Palin ran for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, but lost to Loren Leman. Republican Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski, a former U.S. Senator, appointed Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation. She was chair of the commission in 2003 and served as Ethics Supervisor. In January 2004, she resigned in protest at the unethical behavior of Republican members on the commission. She also filed a formal complaint against Commissioner Randy Ruedrich, who was also chair of the state Republican Party, accusing him of doing party work on public time and of conflicts of interest. She also joined in a complaint against former Alaskan Attorney General Gregg Renkes for conflicts of interest. Both men resigned and Ruedrich paid a $12,000 fine.

Governor of Alaska

In 2006, Palin defeated incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary, running on an ethics reform platform. On November 7, the Republican ticket of Sarah Palin and Sean Parnell defeated Democratic former Governor Tony Knowles with 48.3% against 41.0%. Palin became the first female Governor of Alaska and, at age 42, the youngest governor in the state's history. She took office on December 4, 2006 after being sworn in in Fairbanks, a deviation from the usual ceremony in Juneau.

Palin was very popular with about 90% approval rating among voters early in her term. She declared that resource development would be an important priority of her administration and promoted oil and natural gas development, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Yet the first item on her list was an ethics reform bill, which she presented to the Alaska Legislature on January 24, 2007. The bill tightens employments restrictions after leaving office, increases disclosure of conflicts of interests, enhances financial disclosures, bans gifts from lobbyists and improves electronic access.

Although initially supporting the now infamous $400 million "Bridge to Nowhere" to the town of Ketchikan, Alaska during annual trips to Washington, D.C., she is now against the bridge and all Congressional earmarks. However, the state of Alaska has requested 31 earmarks, worth nearly $200 million, for the 2009 federal budget.

Controversies

Troopergate

In 2008, she came to be under investigation for allegedly using her office to fire Walter Monegan, the Public Safety Commissioner she appointed, for refusing to fire her former brother-in-law, Michael Wooten, an Alaskan state trooper. This controversy came to be referred to as "Troopergate". On October 10, 2008, a report by investigator Stephen Branchflower concluded that firing Monegan "was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority" (since Monegan served at the Governor's pleasure), but that her attempts to force Monegan to fire Wooten constituted an abuse of power and violated state ethics laws. The report also charged that Palin's husband Todd was given unlawful access to resources at the governor's office in attempts to have Wooten fired. A subsequent inquiry by the Personnel Board, which issued its report on November 3, 2008, a day before the U.S. election, cleared the Governor of any wrongdoing.

Alaskan Independence Party

Palin has had some association with the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that seeks secession from the rest of the country. Palin attended a convention in Wasilla as mayor in 2000. The party claims that the Palins were members of the organization in the 1990s, despite records showing that Palin's membership of the Republican Party goes back to 1982. One other contact that Palin has had with the party was in 2008 when she recorded a goodwill message for another convention.

Resignation as Governor

On July 3, 2009, Palin announced that she would not be seeking a second term as governor and that she would be resigning on July 26. In her announcement, given during a press conference in her home town of Lucille, Alaska, she listed as reasons for resigning the legislative gridlock in Alaska resulting from open obstructionism by Democratic as well as estranged Republican legislators, mounting legal bills for numerous ethics complaints filed against her since September 2008, and the waste of public money caused by a high volume of FOIA requests. Of 18 ethics complaints filed against her so far (the latest three filed against her since her resignation announcement) 15 have been dismissed.

Political responses

Her resignation announcement was considered by many on both sides of the political spectrum somewhat perplexing, and some doubted her real motives for resigning. Senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska), expressed surprise, while his colleague Lisa Murkowski(R-Alaska), criticized Palin for "abandoning her state and her constituents before her term has concluded." Senator Chuck Grassley (Iowa) said he was astounded by Palin's move, suggesting that it was more likely to hurt her political career than help her, while Republican strategist and former advisor to George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee also expressed their surprise at Palin's resignation.

Media responses

The Anchorage Daily News commented in an editorial that someone who could not handle a little bit of criticism and who seemed more intent on promoting her career on a national platform was not fit to be Governor of Alaska.

All three major news networks described her announcement as "bizarre" during their evening news broadcasts, with CBS reporter Nancy Cordes describing it as "a rambling, at times confusing announcement." Levi Johnston, the former fiancé of Palin's daughter Bristol, commented that the Palin family is in financial trouble because of legal fees and is hoping to recoup some of the losses through a book deal. Even Rich Lowry, editor of conservative magazine National Review, commented that her resignation seemed to him to be motivated more by her personal desire for national significance, a task, he said that has become "all the more arduous" by her "premature exit."

However, some commentators have defended Palin's decision. Fox News host Greta Van Susteren said that Palin's family was under emotional stress, but added she was not sure whether Palin was "giving up or gearing up." Matthew Continetti of The Weekly Standard predicted that this move would help Palin gain traction in national politics in coming years.

Palin made the point that continued national investigations was hurting the state, both in the level of inquiries, and, less explicitly, the cost of records requests. She was also suffering from personal financial costs. Without judging the issue of costs to her and to the state, it has been questioned if the issue has been presented clearly by Palin. A spreadsheet from her office, emailed to reporters, does not reflect the millions mentioned in her speeches. A Wall Street Journal opinion piece continued the theme of the cost of records requests, although it conflates the state Records Act with the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Vice-Presidential Campaign

Palin was chosen by Republican presidential nominee John McCain as his running mate in his bid for the U.S. presidency in August 2008. She addressed the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota on September 3 prior to her official nomination on September 4. With the opposing ticket including the first African-American candidate (Barack Obama), it was certain that the 2008 elections would yield either the first African-American president or the first female vice-president.

Response to Her Nomination

Palin was a surprise pick as running mate and the announcement was made late in the game. McCain's choice united the Republican Party behind the ticket because Palin was perceived by the party's conservative wing as a sound social conservative, thereby bringing the necessary counterweight to what they considered McCain's weakness on a number of key issues. Outside the Republican Party, Palin was considered a controversial pick. Little was known about her and many questioned whether her small-town mayorship and short time as a first-term governor of the third-smallest state in the union by population density provided her with the requisite experience to be vice-president.

Early media coverage of Sarah Palin's appointment to the McCain ticket focused on various allegations and controversies from her tenure as mayor and governor. Among these were the Troopergate scandal; the circumstances surrounding the birth of her fifth child; her initial backing for the Alaskan "Bridge to Nowhere" project and opposition to earmarks; her support for oil drilling and a gas pipeline in Alaska; and her lack of foreign policy experience. John McCain insisted that Palin had been thoroughly vetted before being offered the vice-presidential ticket, but nevertheless Republican lawyers were sent to Alaska days after the announcement to make a more thorough investigation.

Her address to the Republican National Convention on September 3, 2008 was generally considered to be formidable for such a novice to national politics and raised expectations. Palin did not speak to the media for several weeks after that until a number of interviews given to major news networks toward the end of September. Palin performed poorly in these interviews. Media commentators concluded she appeared uninformed and underprepared on topics of national and international importance. Her first interview with Charles Gibson of ABC News met with mixed reviews, and the second interview (on the sympathetic right-leaning network Fox News) covered no new ground. Both conservatives, such as National Review editor Rich Lowry, and mainstream outlets like Time criticized her performance in a series of interviews with Katie Couric of CBS News as dreadful. Many critics concluded that Palin was not prepared for the national stage and that John McCain did not vet her properly before picking her as his running mate. Prominent Republicans also questioned the rationale of the McCain campaign for not allowing the media free access to Palin at an early date.

Political Convictions

Social issues

Palin is a social conservative. She opposes abortion and is a member of Feminists for Life. She is also a long-time member of the National Rifle Association. She supports a constitutional amendment to restrict federal recognition of marriage to heterosexual couples, though she vetoed a bill to deny benefits to gays, because she felt it was unconstitutional.

Palin favors the death penalty, declaring:

"If the legislature passed a death penalty law, I would sign it. We have a right to know that someone who rapes and murders a child or kills an innocent person in a drive by shooting will never be able to do that again..

Taxes

Palin favors reducing or eliminating taxes that hinder business and "nuisance taxes", such as the tire tax. As governor she stated "I will propose reducing or eliminating burdensome taxes on our citizens like business license fees and the tire tax." As mayor she cut property taxes, increased the city sales tax by half a percent and put more money into public safety.

Critics, however, assert that the narrative of Palin as a tax-cutter does not account for all of the evidence. As mayor, Palin increased taxes to fund a controversial sports complex that is still mired with legal troubles, which resulted in charges of localist favoritism.[3] As governor, she increased the basic tax rate on oil company profits from 22.5% to 25%, and included a windfall profits provision so that when oil prices went over $50 per barrel the tax rate would rise 0.2% for each dollar. In addition, she included a tax floor of 10% of the gross price of the crude.[4] Palin uses a portion of these taxes to give every man woman and child in Alaska a $2,000 entitlement check each year, which has been describes as, "in effect, a vote-buying machine" for Palin among Alaskans.

Budget reform

In 2007, Palin used her veto as governor to cut $237 million from the Alaskan state budget in order to make it sustainable. In one case, this involved canceling funding for electrical upgrades to the Canvas Art Studio in Juneau, run by a charity for people with special needs. Palin defended her decision as an example of her fiscal conservatism.

Iraq

Prior to becoming the vice presidential nominee, Palin stated in a 2007 interview that she had not focused much on the war in Iraq but wanted assurances from the George W. Bush Administration that an exit strategy existed. She also did not give a firm opinion of her position when visiting Alaskan troops in Kuwait (a trip that first required her to obtain a passport). However, when addressing the Assembly of God in Wasilla in June 2008, she told the congregation that "...our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [American troops] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." In August, Palin referenced her son Track's deployment to Iraq as a U.S. infantryman in a further comment demanding a clear plan for the U.S. presence in the country:

"I’m a mom, and my son is going to get deployed in September, and we better have a real clear plan for this war. And it better not have to do with oil and dependence on foreign energy."

Environment

As governor of Alaska, Palin has opposed protecting salmon from contamination due to mining operations, and filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to overturn Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne's decision to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. She is business-friendly and encourages the increased development of the timber, mining, drilling, and fishing industries in Alaska, including the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

In 2008, Palin signed a contract for a natural gas pipeline linking Alaska with the rest of the U.S., to a mixed reception. Her speech at the Republican National Convention in September explained the reason: "...we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence." However, the project remains on the drawing board and could take a decade to complete, with no firm commitments to begin construction as yet.

Palin has also allowed Chevron to triple the amount of toxic waste it dumped into Cook Inlet waters, despite concerns that beluga whales in surrounding waters have reduced from 1,300 to 350, the point of extinction. Trish Rolfe of the Sierra Club's Alaska branch has stated that Palin's policies have been a disaster for Alaska's environment, saying "the idea that she stands up to the oil companies is a joke." Palin has taxed oil company profits to give every man woman and child in Alaska a $2,000 entitlement check each year. According to critics, this has served, in effect, as "a vote-buying machine" for Palin among Alaskans.

Drugs

Palin admits having smoked marijuana when it was legal under Alaska law, but not U.S. law, and stated "I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled". She now favors strict drunk driving laws and opposes the legalization of marijuana and other drugs, and finds particular trouble with methamphetamines.

Party Reform

She favors cleaning up the Republican Party. In a July 2008 interview she stated, "It seems to me the GOP has just got to cleanse itself of all the pork barrel, corruption, lobbying, cash-for-favors that cost them the Congress back in November 2006.".

Autobiography

Her autobiography, Going Rogue: an American Life, was an immediate best-seller, with mixed reviews as to its impact.

A Los Angeles Times book review said it was good at giving blame but not taking credit, but also gave her credit for an ability, comparable to that of Ronald Reagan, for convincing sincerity and actual belief in her presentation. It does, however, comment that "Palin is genuinely convincing in her admiration for Reagan, but one of the things she misses about his appeal was the utter absence of resentment from his persona. This book, on the other hand, fairly seethes with resentment, particularly in the more than 100 pages devoted to the McCain-Palin campaign." Many political autobiographies involve collaborators that are professional writers, and this is not considered dishonorable in American politics. Her collaborator, Lynn Vincent, does not get coauthorship credit, although this is also not unprecedented. Vincent, the article suggests, was selected due to a demonstrated ability to connect with the Christian Right in other books.

U.S. News and World Report, probably the most conservative of major U.S. weekly newsmagazines, said, in a review, the book is "written as much for Christian readers as for political junkies, and it will help establish Palin as much as a Christian figure as a political one. "

Michael Fullilove, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the global affairs program at the Australian Lowy Institute, compared it with the recent, and less significant, autobiography of Carrie Prejean. Both women have the casual similarity of being former beauty contest winners, and conservatives attacked by a liberal media, and, according to Fullilove, showed hubris in interviews. "So while Ms. Prejean's new book is of no importance whatsoever, Sarah Palin's narrative has to be taken very seriously indeed. "

An early conservative supporter, Rob Dreher, did not feel the book improved her political position: "The rap on Palin is that she's too shallow and inexperienced for the presidency — a conclusion that early Palin supporters like me came to during the 2008 campaign. Alas, for conservatives in search of a champion, there's nothing in Going Rogue to challenge that conclusion. It's like this: Palin spends seven pages dishing about her appearance on Saturday Night Live, but just over one page discussing her national security views."

Continuing activities

December 2009 Birther Movement comments

Palin, on 4 December 2009, commented on the Birther Movement, on the Rusty Humphries radio show, "I think it's a fair question, just like I think past associations and past voting records -- all of that is fair game." Soon afterwards, she posted to her Facebook page, that while others have raised the question, she has not directly done so:

At no point - not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews - have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States. Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I've pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask... which they have repeatedly,"

Developing her role

Cal Thomas, a conservative columnist wrote:

I'm sure I would like Sarah Palin if I got the chance to meet her. We share many things in common...the Palin phenomenon - for that is what it is, because her celebrity flows singularly from John McCain's choice of her as a running mate - offers an opportunity for conservatives to choose their path to the future. Will it be a path of the angry and disenfranchised outsider, or will it be something of substance that produces triumphs in both politics and policy? The victim thing is getting old...Do I wish Mrs. Palin had more intellectual depth like Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan's United Nations U.S. ambassador? Of course. But that can be developed if she gets serious about it. Because of her notoriety, she can surely command the best and brightest tutors.