Sarah Palin, born in 1964, first female governor of Alaska (2006-  and the first female vice-presidential candidate of the Republican Party, running in the 2008 presidential election. Palin was the surprise pick of Republican presidential candidate John McCain who selected her as his running mate just prior to the Republican National Convention in September 2008. Palin’s choice quickly energized the evangelical base of the Republican Party because of her anti-abortion views and her close association with evangelical religious groups.

Palin was born Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, in February 1964. Her family moved to Skagway, Alaska, when she was still an infant, and then later moved to Wasilla, Alaska, a suburb of Anchorage. Palin graduated from high school in Wasilla and was voted “Miss Wasilla” in a beauty contest. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications/journalism from the University of Idaho in 1987. She married her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin, a year after her graduation. The family has five children.

Palin’s political career began in 1992 when she was elected to the first of two terms on the Wasilla City Council. In 1996 she was elected mayor of Wasilla. She was reelected to a second term but was unable to run again because the mayor’s office has a two-term limit. In 2003, a year after leaving the mayor’s office, Palin was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. During her tenure on the commission, she headed an ethics investigation of the commission’s chairman, Randy Ruedrich, who was also chair of the state Republican Party. The probe eventually led to his resignation. Although herself a Republican, Palin then began a probe of the state’s Republican attorney general, who reportedly had close ties to Alaska’s Republican governor Frank Murkowski.

Palin’s experience on the commission led her to challenge Murkowski for the Republican Party’s gubernatorial nomination in the 2006 party primary. Citing the need for transparency and responsiveness in state government, she defeated Murkowski in a landslide. She went on to win the general election in a state that is overwhelmingly Republican, becoming Alaska’s first female governor.

Not long after becoming governor, Palin herself came under investigation for possible ethics violations by the Alaska legislature. The probe focused on whether she improperly pressured the public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, to fire Palin’s former brother-in-law, a state trooper who had gone through a bitter divorce proceeding with Palin’s sister. Monegan contended that he was forced to resign in 2008 after refusing to fire the trooper.

A longtime conservative on social and religious issues, Palin opposes abortion in all instances, even in cases when rape or incest leads to pregnancy. On another controversial matter she has supported teaching creationism in schools alongside the teaching of evolution. On environmental issues, Palin has expressed skepticism about whether global warming is a result of human activity and has supported drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, calling on the state to exploit all its natural resources.

Palin is a member of Feminists for Life and the National Rifle Association (NRA). She supported the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, characterizing it as a “task that is from God.” Palin was baptized as a teenager in the Assembly of God church in Wasilla, which is part of the Pentecostal Movement. But since 2002 she has worshipped at what she describes as an independent evangelical church.

Palin’s evangelicalism was credited with winning widespread support for her vice-presidential candidacy among Republican stalwarts at the Republican National Convention in September 2008. Republican presidential candidate John McCain reportedly sought U.S. senator Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent, as his running mate, but his choice was vetoed by the Republican National Committee. McCain then chose Palin as his alternative selection, and that choice appeared to resonate with the activist base of the party, who also admired Palin for her ability to combine career and childcare as a “hockey mom” and for being an outdoors enthusiast.

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