Alaska Governor Sarah Palin: Backgrounder

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been selected by United States Presidential candidate John McCain as his vice-presidential running-mate. Even though the announcement is not official, NBC News and others are reporting Palin as the selection citing sources within the McCain campaign.

In introducing Palin, McCain said, “I have found the right partner to stand up to those who value their privileges over their responsibilities.” Palin has an “outstanding reputation for standing up to special interests and entrenched bureaucracies,” he added.

“I will be honored to serve next to the next president of the United States,” said Palin, accepting the position. “To have been chosen brings a great challenge. I know that it will demand the best I have to give, and I promise nothing less.”

Palin has been the governor of Alaska since 2006, and previously served as councilwoman and mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Prior to this announcement, other potential picks included former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, and Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman.

Sarah Palin will be the Republican Party’s first female candidate for vice-president. In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro was Walter Mondale’s running mate on the Democratic Party ticket.

The first scheduled vice-presidential debate is September 2 in St Louis, Missouri, where Palin will debate Barack Obama’s running mate Joe Biden.

Palin’s aides said they thought she remained in Alaska, however she secretly flew overnight to Ohio where McCain made the formal announcement, at an appearance in Dayton.

Backgrounder

Sarah Louise Heath Palin (born February 11, 1964) is the current Governor of Alaska, and the presumptive 2008 Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States. She is the first female Vice Presidential candidate representing the Republican Party and the second female vice-presidential candidate representing a major political party; the first was Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984. She is also the first politician from Alaska to run on a national ticket in a campaign for President or Vice President.

Palin was a 1984 runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, receiving a scholarship to attend the University of Idaho, where she received a journalism degree. After working as a sports reporter at an Anchorage television station, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska, City Council from 1992 to 1996, was elected mayor of Wasilla (population 5,470 in 2000) in 1996, and ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor in 2002. She was elected Governor of Alaska in 2006 after defeating incumbent governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary and former Democratic Alaskan governor Tony Knowles in the general election. She gained attention for publicizing ethical violations by state Republican Party leaders.

Early life

Palin was born Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, the daughter of Sarah (née Sheeran), a school secretary, and Charles R. Heath, a science teacher and track coach. She has English, Irish, and German ancestry.[ Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. The Heaths were avid outdoors enthusiasts; Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family regularly ran 5 km and 10 km races.

Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors, in Wasilla, Alaska, when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play. She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds. Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.

In 1984, after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, Palin finished second in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant which won her a scholarship to help pay her way through college. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.

Palin holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She married her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin, on August 29, 1988, and briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband.

Pre-gubernatorial political experience

Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she challenged and defeated the incumbent mayor, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes. The ex-mayor and sheriff tried to organize a recall campaign, but failed. Palin kept her campaign promises by reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes by 60%. She ran for reelection against the former mayor in 1999, winning by an even larger margin. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for Lieutenant Governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a four-way race. After Frank Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in mid-term to become governor, Palin interviewed to be his possible successor. Instead, Murkowski appointed his daughter, then-Alaska State Representative Lisa Murkowski.

Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest. After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican Party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail. Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.

Governorship

In 2006, Palin, running on a clean-government campaign, executed an upset victory over then-Gov. Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Despite the lack of support from party leaders and being outspent by her Democratic opponent, she went on to win the general election in November 2006, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles. Palin said in 2006 that education, public safety, and transportation would be three cornerstones of her administration.

When elected, Palin became the first woman to be Alaska's governor, and the youngest governor in Alaskan history at 42 years of age upon taking office. Palin was also the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood. She was also the first Alaskan governor not to be inaugurated in Juneau, instead choosing to hold her inauguration ceremony in Fairbanks. She took office on December 4, 2006.

Highlights of Governor Palin's tenure include a successful push for an ethics bill, and also shelving pork-barrel projects supported by fellow Republicans. After federal funding for the Gravina Island Bridge project that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending was lost, Palin decided against filling the over $200 million gap with state money. "Alaska needs to be self-sufficient, she says, instead of relying heavily on 'federal dollars,' as the state does today."

She has challenged the state's Republican leaders, helping to launch a campaign by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young and publicly challenging Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings.

In 2007, Palin had an approval rating often in the 90s. A poll published by Hays Research on July 28, 2008 showed Palin's approval rating at 80%.

Energy policies

Palin's tenure is noted for her independence from big oil companies, while still promoting resource development. Palin has announced plans to create a new sub-cabinet group of advisors, to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska.

Shortly after taking office, Palin rescinded thirty-five appointments made by Murkowski in the last hours of his administration, including the appointment by Murkowski of his former chief of staff Jim Clark to the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority. Clark later pled guilty to conspiring with a defunct oil-field-services company to channel money into Frank Murkowski's re-election campaign.

In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state's North Slope. Only one legislator, Representative Ralph Samuels, voted against the measure, and in June Palin signed it into law. On January 5, 2008, Palin announced that a Canadian company, TransCanada Corp., was the sole AGIA-compliant applicant. In August, 2008 Palin signed a bill into law giving the state of Alaska authority to award TransCanada Pipelines a license to build and operate the $26-billion-dollar pipeline to ship natural gas from the North Slope to the Lower 48, through Canada.

In response to high oil and gas prices, and in response to the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers' rates. She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send Alaskans $1,200 directly and eliminate the gas tax.

Social issues

Palin is strongly opposed to abortion and supports capital punishment. While running for Governor of Alaska, Palin supported the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in schools, however, she noted she would not use "religion as a litmus test, or anybody's personal opinion on evolution or creationism" as criteria for selection to the school board.

She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination. While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with an Alaskan state Supreme Court order and signed them into law. She disagreed with the Supreme Court ruling and supported a democratic advisory vote from the public on whether there should be a constitutional amendment on the matter. Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii. Palin has stated that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment.

Palin's first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to the partners of gay state employees. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska's attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation.

Matanuska Maid Dairy closure

When the Alaska Creamery Board recommended closing Matanuska Maid Dairy, an unprofitable state-owned business, Palin objected, citing concern for the impact on dairy farmers and the fact that the dairy had just received $600,000 in state money. When Palin learned that only the Board of Agriculture and Conservation could appoint Creamery Board members, she simply replaced the entire membership of the Board of Agriculture and Conservation. The new board, led by businesswoman Kristan Cole, reversed the decision to close the dairy. The new board approved milk price increases offered by the dairy in an attempt to control fiscal losses, even though milk from Washington was already offered in Alaskan stores at lower prices. In the end, the dairy was forced to close, and the state tried to sell the assets to pay off its debts but received no bids.

Budget

In the first days of her administration, Palin followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet purchased (on a state government credit account) by the Murkowski administration. The state placed the jet for sale on eBay three times. In August 2007, the jet was sold for $2.1 million.

Shortly after becoming governor, Palin canceled a contract for the construction on an 11-mile (18-kilometer) gravel road outside of Juneau to a mine. This reversed a decision made in the closing days of the Murkowski Administration.

In June 2007, Palin signed into law a $6.6 billion operating budget—the largest in Alaska's history. At the same time, she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the construction budget in state history. The $237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the construction budget to nearly $1.6 billion.

Commissioner dismissal controversy

On July 11, 2008, Governor Palin dismissed Walter Monegan as Commissioner of Public Safety and instead offered him a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he subsequently turned down.[44][45] Monegan alleged shortly after his dismissal that it may have been partly due to his reluctance to fire an Alaska State Trooper, Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin’s sister, Molly McCann. In 2006, before Palin was governor, Wooten was briefly suspended for ten days for threatening to kill McCann’s (and Palin’s) father, tasering his 11-year-old stepson (at the stepson’s request), and violating game laws. After a union protest, the suspension was reduced to five days.

Governor Palin asserts that her dismissal of Monegan was unrelated to the fact that he had not fired Wooten, and asserts that Monegan was instead dismissed for not adequately filling state trooper vacancies, and because he “did not turn out to be a team player on budgeting issues.” Palin acknowledges that a member of her administration, Frank Bailey, did contact the Department of Public Safety regarding Wooten, but both Palin and Bailey say that happened without her knowledge and was unrelated to her dismissal of Monegan. Bailey was put on leave for two months for acting outside the scope of his authority as the Director of Boards and Commissions. Commissioner Monegan received no severance pay, though at the same time another dismissed Commissioner, Charles Kopp (who served only 11 days) received $10,000.

In response to Palin’s statement that she had nothing to hide, in August 2008 the Alaska Legislature hired Steve Branchflower to investigate Palin and her staff for possible abuse of power surrounding the dismissal, though lawmakers acknowledge that “Monegan and other commissioners serve at will, meaning they can be fired by Palin at any time.” The investigation is being overseen by Democratic State Senator Hollis French, who says that the Palin administration has been cooperating and thus subpoenas are unnecessary. The Palin administration itself was the first to release an audiotape of Bailey making inquiries about the status of the Wooten investigation.

2008 Vice-presidential candidacy

On August 29, 2008, Palin was announced as presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s vice-presidential candidate, or running mate. Palin’s selection surprised many Republican officials who had speculated about other candidates such as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, United States Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. When asked during the summer on CNBC’s Kudlow & Company if she believed that she was qualified to be John McCain’s Vice President, she responded “[A]s for that V.P. talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that V.P. slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”

Palin is considered to have similar policy positions to John McCain in most respects. One major exception is drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which Palin strongly supports and McCain has opposed. Palin’s position on ANWR drilling differs from McCain’s. She has also praised Obama’s energy plan over the plan proposed by McCain. In a July interview on CNBC, Palin expressed that she couldn’t comment on the possibility of a vice presidential nomination until someone explained to her what the position entailed. She also wanted to “make sure that that V.P. slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans.”

Palin is the second U.S. woman to run on a major party ticket, after Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, under former vice-president Walter Mondale in 1984.

Personal life

Palin’s husband, Todd, is a commercial fisherman and is one-quarter Yupik Eskimo. Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP energy corporation at an oil field on Alaska’s North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile “Iron Dog” race four times. The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated from college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street. The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.

On September 11, 2007, the Palins’ then eighteen-year-old son Track, eldest of five, joined the Army.He now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September 2008. She also has three daughters: Bristol, Willow and Piper.

On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome. She returned to the office three days after giving birth. Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. “I’m looking at him right now, and I see perfection,” Palin said. “Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?”

Details of Palin’s personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose hamburger, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it. In December 2007, Palin posed for a photo spread in the fashion magazine Vogue.

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