She describes herself as a “hockey mom“.
McCain drove the selection process and, from the outset, was determined to make a bold, transformative pick that would help him win the White House in the worst political environment for Republicans in decades.
Stephan Hayes, a writer among the caffeinated crew at Weekly Standard, reports in How Palin Got Picked that “McCain’s selection of Palin ended a long and gut-wrenching selection process driven by the senator’s desire to do something unconventional.”
Was Rush Limbaugh an insider when he said on February 26, 2008,
“Will John McCain choose Gov Sarah Palin as his VP?
“Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is the youngest to take that office, suggested as a VP for McCain. Mother of four, she is a ‘babe’, you have to notice.”
“So would having Palin’s name on the ticket be enough to reconcile McCain and Limbaugh?” asked The Weekly Standard the very same day, while adding “Let us assure Rush–we noticed. A Draft Palin for VP campaign began in March.
The cover of Alaska Magazine, February 2008:
When a reporter and photographers from Vogue magazine came to Alaska in December to do a story on her, Palin was sure she disappointed them.
“In the interview you could tell that the writer was trying to get me to focus on the gender and appearance issues, but I kept talking about energy and national security, and not relying on foreign sources of energy,” Palin said. “Finally, she stopped me and said, ‘I know that’s what you want to talk about, but this is a women’s fashion magazine.’ I don’t know about fashion. It’s bunny boots and fleece and The North Face. So I tried to talk about that, but it’s just not the way I’m wired.”
This picture seems to have been clipped from Alaska’s annual Little Norway Festival, celebrating Vikings since 1958.
Born in 1964 in Sandpoint, Idaho, Sarah Palin graduated from the University of Idaho in journalism after attending 5 colleges in 6 years. She is the 11th governor of Alaska and is the youngest as well as the only female to hold that office.
“She comes from the same kind of stock as most North Idaho folks do. She would have made a dandy politician in North Idaho … because of her values, which I’m sure she got from her father.”
“Chuck Heath [Sarah’s father] spent his youth hunting, fishing and playing sports before starting his career as a middle school science teacher, said childhood friend and former Idaho state Sen. Kermit Kiebert.” [link]
The Children’s Defense Fund Action Council rated McCain as America’s worst Senator for children, failing to support these bills affecting children:
- Increase minimum wage (H.R. 2)
- Increase funding for children with disabilities (S. Con. Res. 21)
- Protect children from unsafe medications (S. 1082)
- 2008 Budget resolution (S. Con. Res. 21)
- SCHIP Reauthorization (H.R. 976)
- College Cost Reduction and Access Act (H.R. 2669)
- SCHIP (H.R. 976 – motion to concur)
- DREAM Act (S. 2205)
- Funding child health and education (H.R. 3043)
- Improving Head Start programs (H.R. 1429)
As if children might matter, evangelical Republicans such as Huckabee and the same theocratic wing of the party as Sarah Palin, strive to repeal Roe v. Wade. And some are alarmed that the McCain-Palin administration will also seek to overturn Griswold v. Connecticut, thus preventing the use of contraceptives by married couples in the belief that the birth control pill is abortion.
I’m beginning to pale on Palin, but this is an ‘out-of-nowhere’ selection for VP candidacy.
I hope I’ve collected information and provided insight, bent to Barrack I admit. Palin’s nomination is a curious thing, perhaps malfeasance or Alzheimer’s. More than one columnist believes this nomination is Manifestly Unserious and fails a reasonable test to fulfill the requirements of the office.
McCain doesn’t really know Palin, but that’s still frightening. Knowledge and understanding of all the foreign policy crises to which McCain is always referring — al Qaeda, Islamo-facists, Iran, Russia, Georgia — that stuff doesn’t really matter if one stands up to the special interests at the Wasilla PTA [link]
But not to worry.
Charlie Black, one of McCain’s top advisers, reassures us when he says McCain won’t die and Sarah has time to learn:
“She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long.” [link]
Other posts about Sarah Palin are:
Governor-elect Palin – appointments and relations in Alaska politics
Palpable befuddlement – noticing that America is on fire
Confounded Palin Pundits – coming up to breathe among many
McMoose in downtown Wasilla – reactions in Alaska and elsewhere
Sarah Palin’s Bridge to Pork – hiring D.C. lobbyists for Wasilla!?
Alaska 50% United – some say Alaska’s men will vote
Silly Sarah – photoshopped in 2007, they said “She’s a female George W. Bush.”