About Sarah Palin

Her rise is a great (and rare) story of how adherence to principle–especially to transparency and accountability in government–can produce political success.

On August 29, 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced he had chosen Palin as his running mate, making her the second female vice presidential candidate representing a major political party after Geraldine Ferraro, and the first female vice presidential candidate of the Republican Party.

Palin’s selection surprised many Republican officials, several of whom had speculated about other candidates[i] [ii] such as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, United States Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.[iii] According to ABC News, McCain had in fact wanted to pick Lieberman and only settled on Palin after meeting with her the night before her selection was announced.[iv]

A month previously, Palin had said:[v]

“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 admini-stration. 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., before I can even start addressing that question.”