Her father shot the grizzly bear whose hide is now draped over the sofa in her office. She, too, hunts and fishes. She runs marathons. She delivered her fifth child during her first term as governor. They call her husband, the reigning champion in the annual Iron Dog Snow Machine race, First Dude.
Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's surprising pick for a running mate, took Alaska by surprise, too, not long ago. Though indisputably Alaskan, she rose to prominence by bucking the state's rigid Republican hierarchy, impressing voters more through warmth and charm than an established record.
It was a combination that dumbfounded her rivals.
"She wouldn't have articulated one coherent policy, and people would just be fawning all over her," said Andrew Halcro, a Republican turned independent, who along with Tony Knowles, a Democrat, ran against Palin for governor in 2006.
"Tony and I looked at each other and it was, like, this isn't about policy or Alaska issues, this is about people's most basic instincts: 'I like you, and you make me feel good.'"
"You know," Halcro said, invoking the Democratic presidential nominee, "that's kind of like Obama."
Before Palin, 44, became Alaska's first female governor, in 2006, the top line on her political résumé was her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, a growing, ramshackle suburb of Anchorage with fewer than 7,000 residents. But even before a federal investigation began rattling through the Republican-controlled state Legislature over lawmakers' links to an oil services company, Palin jumped into the governor's race as an outsider calling for reform.
She already had challenged the state Republican Party's chairman, accusing him of abusing his role on a state oil and gas commission to do political work. And by the summer of 2006, Palin was taking on Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican lion of Alaska politics whose bluster and closed-door dealing had finally worn thin in the state.
Ms. Palin (pronounced PAY-lin), youthful and sympathetic with voters but bluntly critical of her party’s leadership, said state government was broken, that it needed to be transparent and responsive. Stunningly, she won in a landslide, trouncing Mr. Murkowski by more than 30 points in the Republican primary that summer and rolling through the general election.
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