Fried Green Onions ~ ~ ~ from the mindblogler: Sarah Palin - Wikipedia, Exposed State GOP Chairman for ethics violation

Fried Green Onions ~ ~ ~ from the mindblogler: Sarah Palin - Wikipedia, Exposed State GOP Chairman for ethics violation
Friday, August 29, 2008
Sarah Palin - Wikipedia, Exposed State GOP Chairman for ethics violation
Sarah Palin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sarah Palin
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This article contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election.Content may change as the election approaches.
Sarah Palin

Governor Sarah Palin
11th Governor of Alaska
Incumbent
Assumed office December 4, 2006
Lieutenant
Sean Parnell
Preceded by
Frank Murkowski
Born
February 11 1964 ( 1964-02-11) (age 44)Sandpoint, Idaho
Political party
Republican
Spouse
Todd Palin
Residence
Wasilla, Alaska
Alma mater
University of Idaho
Profession
Journalist
Religion
Protestant
Sarah Louise Heath Palin (born February 11, 1964) is the current Governor of Alaska, and the Republican vice presidential candidate for the November 2008 election.[1] She is expected to be the second female Vice Presidential candidate representing a major American political party (the first was Geraldine Ferraro). After being selected as the runner up in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska City Council from 1992 to 1996, was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996, and ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor in 2002.
Brought to statewide attention because of her whistleblowing on ethical violations by state Republican Party leaders,[2] she won election in 2006 by first defeating the incumbent governor in the Republican primary, then a former Democratic Alaskan governor in the general election.
Contents[hide]
1 Family and personal background
2 Pre-gubernatorial political experience
3 Governorship
3.1 Energy policies
3.2 Social issues
3.3 Matanuska Maid Dairy closure
3.4 Budget
3.5 Commissioner dismissal
4 2008 Vice-presidential candidacy
5 Electoral history
5.1 Election results
6 References
7 External links
//

Family and personal background
Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, the daughter of Charles and Sally (Sheeran) Heath.[3] Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant.[4] Charles Heath was a popular science teacher and coached track.[4] 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 would regularly run 5k and 10k races.[4]
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.[4] She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds.[4] Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.[4]
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.[4] 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.
Her husband, Todd, is a Native Yup'ik Eskimo.[4] Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope[5] and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile "Iron Dog" race four times.[4] The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street.[4] The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.[6]
She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart.[4] One summer when she was working on Todd's fishing boat, the boat collided with a tender while she was holding onto the railing; Palin broke several fingers.[4]
On September 11, 2007, the Palins' eighteen-year-old son Track, eldest of five, joined the Army.[6] He now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September. She also has three daughters: Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7.[7] On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome.[8] She returned to the office three days after giving birth.[9] 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?"[9]
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.[10][11] 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.[12]

Pre-gubernatorial political experience
Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she challenged the incumbent mayor, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes.[4] The ex-mayor and sheriff tried to organize a recall campaign, but failed.[4] Palin kept her campaign promises, reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes by 60%.[4] She ran for reelection against the former mayor in 1999, winning by an even larger margin.[4][13] Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.[7]
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.[4]
Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission,[14] 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.[4] 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.[15] Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.[4]
Posted by F. G. Onions for the right at Friday, August 29, 2008