JUNEAU, Alaska, Saturday (AFP) -A former beauty queen who has been dubbed “America's Hottest Governor,” Sarah Palin has nevertheless demonstrated during a meteoric political career that she is more than just a pretty face.
The 44-year-old mother of five sent shockwaves through the US presidential election campaign on Friday when she was named Republican candidate John McCain's running mate.
Alaska's first woman governor, Palin is a conservative opponent of abortion who hunts regularly and casts herself as an anti-corruption crusader, positions which have helped win her approval ratings of 80 percent.
 |
| McCain looks on as his running mate Sarah Palin speaks at a campaign event in Dayton, Ohio on Friday. Reuters |
She has only led the vast, oil-producing northwestern state since December 2006, when she became the youngest person ever to hold Alaska's governorship.
Now she has become the second woman ever to run on a major-party White House ticket, and in announcing his pick McCain highlighted Palin's conservative credentials and experience in rooting out graft in Alaska.
“She stands up for what's right and she doesn't let anyone tell her to sit down,” McCain told a rally in Ohio on Friday.
Palin grew up in the town of Wasilla, Alaska -- population 6,700 -- leading her high school basketball team, winning the local beauty pageant and then coming second in the Miss Alaska contest. A popular car bumper sticker in Alaska reads: “Coldest state, Hottest Governor.”
Palin studied journalism at the University of Idaho and then worked in Anchorage as a television sports reporter before moving into politics, returning to Wasilla in 1992 to serve on the city council. Later she successfully challenged the incumbent-mayor and held office from 1996-2002.
Palin soon moved on to bigger game: Republicans entrenched in state office.
After she first lost a run for the lieutenant governorship, she helped expose shady deals linked to the state Republican party's top bosses and finally ousted Republican incumbent Frank Murkowski for the governorship in 2006.
On taking office she immediately began a drive focusing on legislative ethics, driving through a reform bill within six months of her election win. Palin has juggled her job as state chief with being a parent, and regularly picked up her daughter Piper from the school bus when it stopped near the state capitol building during 2007. She continues to commute daily from her hometown of Wasilla to the governor's office, where a large sign over her suite reads “Time to make a difference.” A giant digital clock nearby counts down the days, hours, minutes and seconds remaining in her term, which ends in December 2010. |
E-mail