Senator John McCain caught a nation off guard with his choice of presumptive vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. So, who is Sarah Palin?
Sarah Palin is a first-term Republican governor from Alaska. She is that state’s first-ever female governor and its youngest, sworn in at age 42 in 2006. Prior to becoming governor, she served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska, city council and two terms as the town’s mayor.
After losing the 2002 race for lieutenant governor, Sarah Palin was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, resigning the position 11 months later.
Married with five children, Sarah Palin was 3 years old when John McCain became a POW in Vietnam, yet if elected to the vice presidency, she would be roughly the same age as Al Gore when he took that office.
To further acquaint you with the Republican vice presidential nominee, here are five things you didn’t know about Sarah Palin.
1- Sarah Palin tried to sell a jet on eBay
Shortly after assuming the office of governor, Sarah Palin tried to keep a campaign promise, which was to sell the Westwind II jet that had been bought by the hugely unpopular incumbent, Frank Murkowski.
In 2005, Murkowski requested almost $3 million from the Alaska legislature to buy the jet for use by him, his administration and future administrations. His request was denied, so Murkowski asked the federal government, who also denied him. Unwilling to take no for an answer, Murkowski created a special account and bought it anyway. Voters weren’t impressed with his tenacity.
A year later, Sarah Palin, as governor, listed the jet for sale on eBay, doing so three times, each time bidders failed to meet the reserve. Finally, in August 2007, she succeeded in selling it through a broker for $2.1 million -- at a loss of around half a million dollars.
2- Sarah Palin posed in Vogue
Known for her furs and otherwise stylish outfits (among politicians at least), Sarah Palin is no stranger to chic fashion, which explains why she appeared in a spread for Vogue magazine in February 2008.
In this vein, she’s also a former beauty queen: In 1984, she was crowned Miss Wasilla and she was runner-up in the subsequent Miss Alaska pageant later that year. She didn’t go home empty-handed, however, having been named Miss Congeniality. One curious thing you didn’t know about Sarah Palin is that she lost to a woman named Marilyne Blackburn -- the state’s first black Miss Alaska.
3- Sarah Palin scored the championship point in a high school basketball game
John McCain’s young and attractive running mate has earned a few monikers in her time, including Mrs. Mayor, Madame Governor, Miss Congeniality, GILF, and two notably more feisty names: cougar and, in high school she was known as “Sarah Barracuda.”
This last one she earned as captain of Wasilla High’s girls basketball team, allegedly due to her fiercely competitive spirit. That level of gamesmanship served her and her team well: In the state championship game, Sarah Palin not only scored the winning basket, but she did it with a stress fracture in her ankle.
4- Sarah Palin eloped with her high school sweetheart
Soon after Sarah Heath met Todd Palin at a high school basketball game, the two became sweethearts, but another six years would pass before they decided to tie the knot in 1988. Had it been a better fishing year for the two of them (they operated a small commercial fishery), they might have had enough money to pay for a “real” wedding; instead, they eloped, enlisting some witnesses from a nearby nursing home and dropping $35 at a local courthouse.
Known in Alaska as the “first dude,” the blue-collar Todd Palin is a four-time Iron Dog 2,000-mile snowmobile race champion and, according to a piece in the Anchorage Daily News, he is very much a house-husband.
5- Sarah Palin inhaled
Alaskans are permitted by law to possess a single ounce of marijuana, thanks first to a 2003 ruling by the Alaska Court of Appeals that made it legal to possess no more than four ounces, and later, by a Supreme Court ruling that amended the amount to one. The reason it even reached the Supreme Court was because, in 2006, then-governor Murkowski rejected the Court of Appeals ruling.
Consequently, during the 2006 race for governor, marijuana became an issue among the candidates, albeit a minor issue. At this time, Sarah Palin seemingly decided to launch a preemptive strike against any of her old stoner friends who might have been planning to climb out of the woodwork; she announced that not only had she tried weed, but that she couldn’t “claim a Bill Clinton” and say she never inhaled.
Don’t load that celebratory bowl just yet. One last thing you didn’t know about Sarah Palin is that although she did inhale, she opposes legalization.
