"What is it exactly that the VP does every day?"

Peter Principle Pimps Palin!

On December 4, 2006, Sarah Palin made history by becoming the 11th governor of Alaska, the first woman and youngest person to be elected to the post. She was elected governor after upsetting the incumbent Governor Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary.

As governor she declared that education, public safety, and transportation would be the three cornerstones of her administration. Prior to becoming governor, Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996, and was elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996 and 1999. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors in 1999. In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor of Alaska.

Sarah Louise Heath was born in Sandpoint, Idaho. She is the daughter of Charles and Sarah Heath. Her mother worked as a school secretary, and her father a science teacher and track coach. Her ancestry includes English, Irish, and German. Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant.

At Wasilla High School in Alaska, Palin was a point guard and captain of the basketball team. She was also the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at her high school. She was the prayer leader before each game. Palin was originally baptized as a Catholic, but was rebaptized at age 12 by the Wasilla Assembly of God Church. She is a member of The Church on the Rock, an independent congregation. She describes herself as a non-denominational Christian.

She was Miss Wasilla in 1984 and later lost a pageant to become Miss Alaska; she got second place.

Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho, where she also minored in political science. She started her professional career as a local news and sports reporter for the local Anchorage TV station KTUU. She later served as city councilwoman and mayor of the town of about 9,000 before being elected governor of her home state in 2006.

She married Todd Palin in 1988, her boyfriend since high school. She is the mother of five children. Her husband works for the oil company BP in a non-managerial position and works as a fisherman in his hometown during the summer. He is a world champion snowmobiler. Neither her husband nor her son Track are registered Republicans, and neither have ever registered with a political party. Over half of Alaskans are registered as nonpartisan or undeclared.

Palin has two sons and three daughters. Her youngest child, Trig, born April 2008 has Down syndrome. Palin's decision to have the baby was applauded by the pro-life community. Track, her eldest child, is in an infantry brigade in the U.S. Army and was scheduled to deployed to Iraq on September 11, 2008.

A biography written about Sarah Palin, Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment on Its Ear, by Kaylene Johnson was released April, 2008. Immediately after McCain announced his VP choice the biography soared to number 12 of all books on the online merchant web site Amazon.com. The book ranked number one in the political biographies section of the web site.

Among the criticisms of her as a vice presidential nominee is that she has no national experience, not to mention international experience. McCain's VP choice seems ironic given the money he has spent in an attempt to portray Barack Obama as lacking the experience necessary to be president of the United States.

Palin strongly supports and promotes oil and natural gas resource development in Alaska. She believes that "a changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state" but she would not "attribute it to being man-made." This statement was announced after securing Senator McCain's VP nomination.

In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state's North Slope. In August 2008, Palin signed a bill into law giving the state of Alaska authority to award TransCanada Pipelines. A license was granted to build and operate the $26 billion pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope to the Lower 48 through Canada.

In May 2008, Palin objected to listing polar bears as an endangered species. She filed a lawsuit to stop the listing fearing it would hurt oil and gas development. Palin strongly supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

In response to high oil and gas prices, Palin originally proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards and proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers' rates. She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and instead paid Alaskans $1,200 each from the windfall surplus the state earns due to higher oil prices.

Palin's selection as the 2008 Republican party vice presidential candidate came as a surprise. John McCain had only met Palin six months earlier at a meeting of the National Governors Association, and he had only spoken with her about the position once, on the Sunday before he formally offered it to her.

A month prior to being named McCain's nominee, Palin was quoted on the CNBC show Kudlow & Company as saying, "But as for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I'm used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we're trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S."

At the beginning of October 2008, the McCain campaign used Palin to attack the character of Barack Obama. Palin was quoted at a California political rally as saying about Obama: "Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." The attacks, which were at once nonsensical and untrue, only eroded confidence in Palin as a potential future president.

In November 2008, three days after she and McCain were defeated by Senator Barack Obama and his running mate Senator Joe Biden, Palin lashed out at critics of her performance in the campaign, calling them "cowards and jerks" according to the Associated Press. Palin was criticized for accepting an expensive wardrobe paid for by the McCain campaign, her apparent belief that Africa is a country rather than a continent and her inability to name the three countries in the North American Free Trade Agreement (the United States, Canada and Mexico).

On July 26, 2009, Palin walked away from the governorship of Alaska after serving 2-1/2 years of her four-year term. When she announced her resignation, Palin complained about her treatment by the media and the ethics charges against her. Speaking on ABC television network program "This Week" on July 5, conservative columnist George Will said "the one that rings most hollow is she doesn't want to put Alaska through the terror of being a lame duck governor. If she is just weary of it, one can understand that. Still, she made a contract with them to serve out her term. And she said, in her own words, she now is a quitter."

Palin's resignation followed closely the release of a widely circulated article about her ("It Came from Wasilla") in the August 2009 issue of Vanity Fair magazine by Todd Purdum. The article includes damaging statements about Palin from former staffers of the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain.

On November 17, 2009, publisher HarperCollins released Palin's memoir titled "Going Rogue." Palin is reported to have received at least a $1.25 million advance for the book, and her total compensation may be much higher.