Sarah Palins meteoric rise had her scrutinized by the media
and parodied on SNL,
but she was also a successful TV sportscaster and governor
before that.
Here's how Palin briefly captured the nation,
going from small town beauty queen to John Mccains running
mate.
There was little in Sarah Palin S upbringing to suggest
that she'd later become such a key political figure.
She was born in Sandpoint,
ID in 1964 to a school secretary mother and a
science teacher father.
She did, however, show her prowess as an athlete from
an early age,
particularly after the family moved to Wasilla,
AK. While studying at Wasilla High in the early
1980s, Palin served as point guard of the state championship
winning basketball team.
While playing on the team,
Palin was nicknamed Sarah Barracuda.
She was even appointed head of the Fellowship of Christian
Athletes and was a member of the cross country team.
Palin was also crowned Miss Wasilla after winning the Towns
beauty pageant in
1984.
You could say that Palin was something of a nomad
when it came to her education.
Following her high school graduation in
1982, she reportedly landed a place at the University of
Hawaii at Hilo.
But in the first of many moves,
she soon decided to transfer to Hawaii Pacific University,
located in Honolulu. For just a semester.
In 1983, Palin enrolled at North Idaho College,
however, she once again transferred,
this time to the University of Idaho.
Palin then spent a brief period taking courses at
Alaska's Matanuska Sasitna College. She ultimately graduated from the University
of Idaho in
1987 with a bachelor's degree in communications.
Palin was supported throughout her remarkable rise to political fame
by her husband,
Todd Palin. Sarah and Todd first started dating back in
high school and eventually went on to marry in
1988. We met in high school and two decades and
five children later,
he's still my guy. Todd earned a living running the
commercial fishing business owned by his family before landing a
position with B PS processing facility at Prudhoe Bay.
Todd largely managed to keep out of the spotlight even
when his wife started making international headlines.
But in 2019, he found himself on the front pages
when he filed for divorce after
31 years of marriage. In paperwork submitted to Anchorage Superior
your court,
his reasons were cited as incompatibility of temperament.
Sarah and then husband Todd first became parents in
1989 with the birth of Track Palin.
After welcoming daughters Bristol and Willow into the world in
1990 and 1994, the couple appeared to have completed their
family unit.
But seven years later, they had a fourth child,
Piper. Then in 2008, they had another Trig.
That said, it's fair to say that their brood has
almost created as many headlines.
Crack, in particular, has repeatedly found himself in hot water.
In 2017, he was reported to have broken into the
family home and assaulted his father while inebriated.
The previous year, he was arrested following a physical altercation
with his then partner,
Jordan Lowe. Then, in 2018,
he was charged with domestic violence and resisting arrest after
an incident at his Wasilla home.
The Army veteran ended up spending a year in custody
for the domestic violence incident.
Bristol, meanwhile, courted controversy by appearing on mtvu Teen Mom
after becoming pregnant with her son Trip at the age
of just 17.
The reality star ended up in a bitter custody battle
with the baby's father,
Levi Johnston.
Following brief periods working for local TV stations in Anchorage
as a sportscaster,
Palin took a major pivot into the political realm.
In 1992, she was elected to the Wasilla City Council
thanks to a campaign centered on opposing an increase in
taxes,
and within four years she was elected the mayor of
Wasilla.
Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska,
I was mayor of my hometown.
During her 2-3 year terms as mayor,
Palin set the blueprint for much of her political career,
campaigning for gun rights and against abortion.
In
1999, Palin's political career received a further boost when she
was elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.
By the time she vacated her seat in
2002, the Republican had ambitions that extended far beyond the
Alaskan city.
In 2002, Palin started to make waves outside her Anchorage
hometown with a bid to become the Republican Party's nominee
for Lieutenant governor.
She wasn't successful, however, losing the campaign by around 2000
votes.
A year later, Palin was appointed by Alaska Governor Frank
Murkowski to become the Oil and Gas Conservation Committee's Commission
chair,
and although this position wasn't a direct route to the
political elite,
it still gave her the kind of experience she needed
for her next challenge.
That would come in 2006,
when she defeated Murkowski in the Republican primary for governor.
That same year, she emerged triumphant in the general election
with victory over Democrat Tony Knowles,
making her the first female governor in Alaskan history as
well as the youngest.
Dubbed by the Anchorage Daily News as the Joan of
Arc of Alaska politics,
Palin certainly made an impression during her stint as the
state's governor,
but for the more liberal side of her community,
it wasn't a favorable 1.
Palin advocated for a banning of same sex marriage.
Additionally, Palin supported pro-life legislation and the teaching of creationism
in schools.
The Alaska governor also found herself in trouble with the
law.
In 2008, an independent investigator was hired by the Alaska
legislation
to look into the firing of Walt Monaghan,
a public safety commissioner. Monaghan had argued that he'd been
fired because of his refusal to let go of Palins
ex
brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten.
Palin insisted that she was innocent,
arguing that Monaghan was guilty of egregious rogue behavior,
according to HuffPost. You welcome the investigation,
Absolutely. There's nothing to hide.
However, a subsequent report found that her own conduct had
been a violation of Alaska Ethics Act and abuse of
power.
Much to everyone's surprise, Sarah Palin was plucked from relative
obscurity in
2008 to become John McCain's vice presidential running mate.
As a result, she once again broke new ground,
becoming the first woman from the Republican Party to achieve
such a position.
And the Alaska governor soon made sure that everyone knew
who she was.
Indeed, at the Republican National Convention in September that year,
the ever quotable Palin famously described herself as just your
average hockey mom before adding,
do you know they say the difference between a hockey
mom and a Pitbull
lipstick? And just in case anyone was still uncertain about
her tenacity,
the politician told ABC News's Charlie Gibson exactly why she
felt prepared for the role,
Saying, I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing
that you can't blink.
You have to be wired in a way of being
so committed to the mission,
the mission that we're on,
reform of this country and victory in the war.
You can't blink.
Unfortunately for Palin, not everyone believed she was as prepared
as she claimed,
with many critics expressing concerns about her lack of foreign
policy experience.
The Washington Post, for example,
commented that her first televised interview was strikingly devoid of
the type of language typically used by government officials when
talking about EU s s relationship with Russia.
Palin didn't exactly help herself either when she admitted that
she hadn't had a passport until 2007 and
that she had never come face to face with a
foreign leader.
She was also accused of contradicting herself on climate change
when she appeared to accept that global warming could be
a man made issue after previously being something of a
climate denier. And then there was the moment when Palin
appeared to be confused by a question about the Bush
Doctrine,
further sticking the knife in the New York Times remarked.
Granted, this might not be something that your average hockey
mom would know,
but it probably is something that a commander in chief
in waiting might have considered.
It wasn't just the news bulletins that Sarah Palin dominated
as the
2008 presidential election gathered steam.
She also became a regular topic of conversation in the
field of topical comedy.
None more so than on Saturday Night Live,
where Tina Fey's pitch perfect impersonation of the governor became
almost as famous as the real thing.
And I can see Russia from my house.
After Faye starred alongside Amy Poehler in a sketch that
poked fun at the vice presidential candidate,
Palin told Fox News that she was able to see
the funny side of being lampooned.
She told the outlet. I watched with the volume all
the way down and I thought it was hilarious.
I didn't hear a word she said,
but the visual was spot on.
In fact, Palin was so amused that she agreed to
appear alongside her convincing doppelganger on a later episode of
SNLA.
Few weeks before the American public took to the polling
booths,
the politician joined Faye and Alec Baldwin in an opening
routine based on a press conference.
I must say, your brother Steven is my favorite Baldwin
brother.
She later appeared in the Weekend Update segment too,
and she had a fun time doing so,
telling WWR TV it was the most welcoming and friendly
environment that you could imagine.
Everyone was so nice, and you know,
you have to have a sense of humor through all
of this.
Of course, McCain's big gamble on Palin ultimately failed to
pay off when Barack Obama was elected the 44th president
of the United States in November
2008. Nevertheless, the losing candidate paid tribute to his running
mate in his concession speech,
calling her an impressive new voice in our party for
reform and the principles that have always been our greatest
strength.
Palin subsequently headed back to her home state and in
the summer of
2009 resigned from her Alaskan governor position,
citing everything from lawsuits to ethics complaints as her reasons.
Many believe this development was a sign that she intended
to run for the biggest seat in the White House
three years later.
That same year, Palin founded her very own political committee,
and in 2010 she aligned herself with the Tea Party,
throwing her support behind several midterm election candidates.
Palin was no stranger to the world's of politics and
entertainment,
and she took her media onslaught to another level in
the wake of her election defeat.
In 2010 alone, Palin was appointed as a Fox News
Channel commentator,
published her follow up memoir America by Heart,
and starred in her own TLC reality show,
Sarah Palin's Alaska, which pulled in a
record-breaking 5 million viewers. Then in 2014,
Palin launched her very own online network.
Unfortunately, the subscription based the her Palin channel failed to
pull in as many fans as her reality show.
Within a year, the former governor decided that any new
content would go on either her Facebook page or her
political committees official website instead.
Although Palin decided against running for the presidency in 2012,
she didn't completely give up her political ambitions.
In 20/22, she decided to run for
Alaska's only House seat in a special election.
The seat had opened up after its former occupant,
Republican Congressman Don Young, died in March of that year,
and having previously endorsed Donald Trump for his successful presidential
bid six years earlier,
the former president returned the favor by endorsing Palin.
However, Palin lost to Mary Peltola,
a former Democratic State House member,
in 2024. Sarah Palin appeared on We Are Family,
the talent contest in which the studio audience must determine
which disguise celebrity their civilian relative is performing with.
The former governor of Alaska delivered an interesting rendition of
Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks alongside her cousin
JD.
Remarkably, this wasn't the first Fox singing contest that Palin
went undercover on.
Four years earlier she dressed up as a giant pink
and purple bear on The Masked Singer,
but her run, which included an unlikely take on Sir
Mix A Lots Baby Got Back,
was cut short.