Getting to know Sarah Palin- Teen daughter’s pregnancy may influence voters.
By Brian Frederick
HOLLYWOOD, CA (RUSHPRNEWS) 9/2/08 – Republican Presidential candidate John McCain said he knew of the unwed teenage pregnancy in the home of running mate Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin before he picked her over better-known candidates.
The mother of five whose placement on the ticket was meant to reinforce traditional values has confirmed her daughter is five months pregnant, and the GOP is scrambling to gauge the impact. The family and the campaign said they had hoped to keep the matter private.
Yet President Bush is set to speak tonight at the Republican Convention, and while he will not likely address the latest revelation about Palin, any message about family values may have been red-lined from his speech – though his own daughters have been a handful.
This comes at the beginning of the convention when the public is looking to discover more about Palin, a surprise choice by McCain.
By all accounts Sarah Palin, 11th Governor of Alaska, first woman Governor of Alaska and the youngest Governor of Alaska is a mother with five children and exactly the conservative running mate liberal John McCain, 72, needs to balance the Republican ticket. As two-time mayor of Wasilla, Alaska from 1996 to 2002, Palin, 44, ran an unsuccessful campaign for Lieutenant Governor of Alaska in 2002. In 2006 Palin ran a successful campaign for Governor of Alaska, taking the oath of office on December 4, 2006.
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On August 29, McCain announced Palin as his choice for running mate. Aside from the obvious political affiliation, Palin is a native of Idaho. She moved with her family to Alaska as an infant and eventually helped out with the family’s successful commercial fishing business in her later years. At the age of 20, Palin entered the Miss Alaska beauty pageant, finishing second and won a college scholarship which she parlayed into a Bachelor of Science degree in communications from the University of Idaho. After a brief stint as a sports reporter, Palin pursued her political career as mayor of Wasilla.
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As a politician, Palin is pro-life and is a devotee for the feminist movement that supports a pro-life position. She is a staunch supporter of education, especially at the earliest ages of child development. In support of her pro-life position, Palin announced that her unmarried daughter Bristol, 17, is pregnant and will have the child. “I am happy to become a grandmother,” Palin said proudly. Palin made no hesitation to inform the press about her daughter’s pregnancy and informed McCain, who cited the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter as “not being an issue” for running their campaign.
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Palin’s first veto as Governor came on the heals of a State Supreme Court mandate that required Alaska to affirm same sex benefits for state employees back in 1998. The affirmation would define in this new bill the state’s requirement to treat all Alaskans equally. The bill which came before Palin in December 2006 would have legislatively banned same sex benefits for state employees and although Palin disagreed with the court’s decision on same sex benefits, she vetoed the bill based on her agreement that all Alaskans should be treated equally, which effectively reaffirmed the court’s opinion.
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Palin favors capital punishment and is a lifetime member of the NRA. She is a proponent of the second amendment that unconditionally gives individuals the right to “keep and bear arms.” Growing up in Alaska, Palin is an avid hunter and enjoys the occasional mooseburger.
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Although not particularly clear exactly at what age, Palin has admitted to smoking pot during the time when the state of Alaska legalized smoking marijuana, even though the federal government has continuously declared it illegal. “I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say I never did,” said Palin. Unlike democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama who has admitted to using cocaine, Palin has stated she has not used cocaine.
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Palin is not a supporter of wild-life but does support a cowardly policy for state biologists to murder animals deemed as predators (i.e. wolves and polar bears) by sharpshooters from helicopters. The policy is aimed at supporting hunter’s rights to keep a sustainable population of moose that would otherwise be killed by predator animals.
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On the right track, Palin supports an aggressive energy plan to open up Alaska to oil drilling, something many Americans who once recently were against now strongly support. She has supported legislation to increase taxes from big oil profits and initiated plans for Alaska to develop studies for climate change and greenhouse emissions.
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Although Palin has no personal military experience, what she does have is command of two defense regiments as Alaskan Governor. The first being the Alaskan National Guard and the second is Alaska’s own State Defense Force inherited from the Alaska Territorial Guard which was initiated during WWII. Because Alaska is less then 30 miles from Russia, Governor Palin is continually briefed with top secret information from NORAD, receiving exclusive information that many of the unions lower 48 governors would not normally receive.
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Palin is in favor of leaving Iraq as soon as possible and favors President Bush’s exit strategy of leaving Iraq by 2011. Palin’s son Track, 19, is headed for Iraq this month.
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In 1994, Palin was said to have been a member of the Alaska Independence Party. The party’s sole purpose is to force a state wide vote to decide if Alaska should remain a state of the United States, become an independent nation, or join Canada. Palin switched parties and became a registered republican in 1996, which keeps perfectly instinct with maverick John McCain’s secret desire to switch parties and register as a democrat just about the same time Palin was discovering her own political recourse or discourse, however you want to look at it. And now you know!
SOURCE: Hollywood Today
