Word: wasilla
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...Palin may be an obscure 44-year-old first-term governor and mother of five from tiny Wasilla, Alaska, but in many ways she reinforces John McCain's narrative of a maverick conservative crusader. She's risen to power by battling corruption in her own state's Republican establishment, exposing misconduct by the state GOP chairman and challenging the incumbent GOP governor. She's a committed Christian who's pro-life in practice as well as in theory; she recently gave birth to a son that she knew would have Down Syndrome...
...journalism major from the University of Idaho, Palin started her political career in 1992 as a Wasilla city councilor. She was elected to the first of her two terms as mayor in 1996, and earned a reputation as "Sarah Barracuda" -- also her nickname as a feisty point guard on her high school basketball team -- for taking on entrenched bureaucrats. After running a strong race for lieutenant governor as an unknown in 2002, she made her mark on Alaska politics as a commissioner of a state oil and gas commission, when she tried to expose GOP officials with improper ties...
...Still, Palin boasts an 80% approval rating. She lived the first three months of her life in Idaho, but Alaskans clearly see this self-described "hockey mom" as one of them, a former Miss Wasilla who worked as a TV sports announcer and helping to run a commercial fishing business before entering politics. Her husband, Todd Palin, is part native Eskimo who works in the oil fields in addition to his fishing business, and is also a champion snowmobiler known in Alaska as the First Dude. In a state where Big Oil is king, Palin has been a staunch drilling...
...nation, and so I had ingrained in me an interest in our government, how things worked. And then from there I just became more interested in more practical steps that I could take... [I] started off running for city council when I was very young in the town [Wasilla] where I had grown up and was elected to two terms on the city council. And then I realized to be really able to make a difference - not just being one of six of a body but to make a difference - I would have to run for the top dog position...
...over the Oval Office if anything should happen to him. But Palin's op-eds highlight that her age - she's just 44 - is only one of several counterpoints she could offer to the youth-friendly Obama campaign. A newcomer to national politics herself, having risen from mayor of Wasilla (population 6,715) to governor of Alaska in 2006, she trumpets some of the same calls for change that attract Sen. Obama's followers. "If we want to unleash the energy hidden under North Slope tundra," she wrote in 2006 about Alaska's gas pipeline negotiations, "the best...