26 September 2008

Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s Nominee for Vice President

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin campaigns with Senator John McCain in Ohio.

By David Pitts

The governor of Alaska shares John McCain’s reputation for being a reformer and for sometimes going against their party’s platform.

David Pitts is a freelance journalist whose articles on politics have appeared in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Baltimore Sun, and other major U.S. newspapers.

“I stood up to the special interests, the lobbyists, big oil companies, and the good-ol’ boy network,” said Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, in her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. The mother of five is most proud of the reforms she has championed, particularly as governor of Alaska.

Palin’s roots are in the American West. She was born in 1964 in Idaho, but her family moved to Alaska, which became a state in 1959, when she was an infant. Her origins are modest. Both her parents, now retired, worked for the school system. She has a degree in journalism with a minor in politics from the University of Idaho. Her husband of 20 years works in the oil industry and as a commercial fisherman. Before she got into politics, Palin was a television sports reporter. The one-time beauty queen, basketball player, and coach loves to hunt and fish in her off time, typical activities of many Alaskans.

One reason Republican nominee John McCain chose Palin to be his running mate is that she has executive as well as legislative experience, according to newspaper accounts. Palin served two terms on the local council in Wasilla (population: 8,500) not far from Anchorage. She also served two terms as the town’s mayor. Palin ran for governor of the state in the fall of 2006 after winning the Republican primary against incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski. She defeated a former two-term governor in the general election, running on a reform platform.

During her political career, Palin has compiled a mostly conservative record, especially on social issues. She is a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), a lobbying group promoting the rights of gun owners. She also is against abortion and belongs to the organization Feminists for Life. In addition, she opposes gay marriage. However, she is not rigidly ideological. For example, Palin’s first veto as governor was of a bill that would have barred gay state employees from receiving partnership benefits. She is popular with the people of Alaska and has consistently earned high approval ratings, even among the state’s rough and tough frontiersmen. She is “a hardworking, pro-business politician whose friendly demeanor (that Palin smile) made her palatable to the typical pickup-driving Alaskan man,” according to a profile in Alaska magazine.

In 2007, Sarah Palin and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm mea­sure siding for a Habitat for Humanity house in Michigan.

Going Her Own Way

Highlights of her record as governor include passage of a landmark ethics bill and opposition to corruption, including within her own political party. She also has opposed “pork-barrel projects,” projects that bring federal money to political constituents, even those favored by Republicans. Palin also has made a point of standing up to big oil, winning a tax increase on oil company profits, the revenues from which are being partially returned to Alaskan taxpayers. In addition, she championed legislation mandating a one-year waiting period for politicians between leaving office and working for the state’s powerful energy companies.

Palin is strongly in favor of opening up the state’s abundant federal land to energy businesses. Like McCain, she favors offshore oil drilling, but unlike him she also supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In June of 2007, Palin signed into law the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act designed to facilitate a gas pipeline that would eventually distribute North Slope natural gas to consumers throughout North America.

Despite her reputation for championing ethical government and fighting special interests, Palin is currently under investigation by a committee of the Alaska state legislature. Earlier this year, she fired the commissioner of public safety, who later asserted he lost his job because of his reluctance to fire a state trooper involved in a custody and divorce battle with Palin’s sister. As of early September, the investigation had not concluded. Palin says the charge is without foundation.

In a joint appearance in Dayton, Ohio, where McCain introduced Palin, the Republican nominee portrayed his running mate as a maverick much like himself who has “reached across the aisle” and worked with Democrats to get things done. McCain praised Palin as a person of “deep compassion” who fights “against corruption.” Palin described herself as “a hockey mom” whose purpose is to “challenge the status quo and serve the common good.” In her remarks, she praised McCain’s approach to Iran, Iraq, and the recent crisis in Georgia.

McCain’s choice of a woman to be the Republican nominee for vice president was seen by much of the American press as an attempt to appeal to disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters who were disappointed that Clinton was not on the Democratic ticket. Palin specifically mentioned Clinton’s failed campaign, saying that with a vote for McCain-Palin, “we can shatter that glass ceiling” that Clinton cracked. The “glass ceiling” is an invisible obstacle that prevents women and minorities from advancing to leadership positions. Hillary Clinton hoped to break through the glass ceiling by winning the ultimate contest, the presidency of the United States.

Aides to McCain said Palin would make the Republican ticket more competitive in the mountain West. They also said that Palin’s relative youth — she is 44, three years younger than Obama — also was important to McCain, who introduced her to the American public on his 72nd birthday, August 29.

In an interview with People magazine shortly after Palin’s selection, McCain said, “I think the important thing was that she’s a reformer,” a point he underlined in an interview on the Fox News television network two days after her debut as his vice presidential nominee. Asked if Palin had sufficient national security experience, McCain said his running mate has “the right judgment” and that she brings to the ticket “a spirit of reform and change.” As a consequence of McCain’s pick — whatever happens in the November election — the United States will have either its first African-American president or its first woman vice president. Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket when Democratic nominee Walter Mondale selected her as his running mate in 1984. But the Mondale-Ferraro ticket went down to defeat that year to incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan and his vice president, George Herbert Walker Bush, the current president’s father.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.