Palin: A swift rise in politics amidst charges of vendettas

WASILLA, Alaska – As a teenager growing up in this small town 30 miles outside of Anchorage, Sarah Heath Palin was known by her friends as an athletic tomboy with a lively sense of humor and easy-going personality.

She was the kind of energetic teenager that once spontaneously choreographed a dance to the 1970s pop song "My Sharona" in the upstairs living room of the Heath family home.

"She's hilarious and super down-to-earth ././. and she's pretty ambitious, that's for sure," said Adele Morgan, a Wasilla friend who has known Palin since grade school.

Both critics and supporters of Palin agree that the 44-year-old mother of five's personable style and ability to communicate with voters has played a huge role in her swift rise up the political ladder.

"Her ability to connect with people is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen," said Jim Whitaker, the Republican mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough who is backing Barack Obama for president.

But as governor, there are accusations that she let personal vendettas mix in with her politics and had trouble trusting anyone not seen as a loyal confidante from her past. Though recent polls show her approval ratings are still high in her state, many Alaskans say they are seeing a more partisan side of Palin since John McCain picked her as his running mate.

In addition, after branding herself as a crusader against corruption, Palin now is embroiled in an investigation into whether she abused her power when she fired her public safety commissioner this summer. Palin's spokesman from the McCain campaign insists she has done nothing wrong and is an "open book" when it comes to sharing her side of the story. But she has backed down from cooperating with the legislative body conducting the investigation, saying partisan Democrats are running it.

"Six months ago, I would have said we are working well with her, she's listening to us, I like her personally and she's learning," said Rep. Beth Kerttula, a Democrat from Juneau and the House Minority Leader. "But it is a new day and a different ball game."

Sharp Elbows, Taking on Republicans

Like many Alaskans, Palin grew up hunting, fishing and snowmobiling. She was a high school basketball star—-earning the nickname Sarah Barracuda for her aggressive play— and a beauty pageant queen.

As the mother of five children, Palin and her husband, Todd Palin, her high school sweetheart and a commercial fisherman and oil field worker, were constant fixtures at local youth hockey games and other community activities.

Wasilla, population 7,000, is part of what has been referred to as the Bible Belt of Alaska, a state that is better known for its residents' fierce independence and self-sufficient ways than religious affiliations.

Palin and her family weren't more religious than other folks in town, friends of hers say. But she has said her faith has shaped many of the socially conservative views now invigorating the Republican Party's religious right.

As governor, those issues have not topped her agenda. Palin, for example, rejected suggestions this summer to include abortion restriction legislation in a special session on oil and gas taxes, despite calls by conservative lawmakers.

"She is a strong Christian and has a strong faith in God," said Judy Patrick, who served on the Wasilla City Council during Palin's terms as mayor and attends the same Wasilla Bible Church as the governor. "For us, it is about a relationship you have with God, as opposed to a religious choice that you might tick off on a questionnaire."

In her first campaign for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, Palin said she would trim spending and change the direction of city government. But her pro-life views polarized an otherwise typical, small town mayoral race.

Palin won the race and immediately asked for resignation letters from the city's department heads, who had been hired under her predecessor.

Critics accused her of being vindictive, and the reaction in the community was "nothing short of hysteria," Patrick said.

"They accused us of staging a coup, and some of the most vocal opponents got really mean spirited about the whole thing," Patrick said. "She got elected on a platform of change, and in order to carry out that change, she needed to get people on a team that were working for change."

Accusations of using her power to fight personal and political foes would follow her as she moved into higher offices in the state government.

Palin lost a 2002 bid for lieutenant governor. In 2003, then Gov. Frank Murkowski appointed her to Alaska's energy commission. The next year, Palin filed an ethics complaint against a fellow member of the commission, who was also the head of the state Republican Party. Palin accused him of conducting party business on state time. The commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, admitted wrongdoing and paid a $12,000 fine.

Palin's move angered some within her own party. The battle with the state party's establishment marked a pivotal moment in her career.

In 2006, Palin began her campaign for governor with the promise of an open and transparent government and to clean up state politics. She promised to take on the oil industry to maximize Alaskans' interest in the development of the state's enormous mineral wealth.

As a relatively unknown candidate, Palin beat the unpopular Murkowski in the Republican primary.

"She won because she wasn't Frank," said Larry Persily, who worked for Palin's Washington, D.C., office. Persily was a newspaper columnist in Anchorage during Palin's gubernatorial race. "Frank was seen as arrogant and secretive. She was approachable and open. The public was really just bowled over by her, the press included."

Following Power

Once in office, Palin's public approval ratings soared to more than 80 percent during her first six months. Meanwhile, Republican politicians, including President Bush, suffered in the polls nationally.

The governor sparked a frenzy of attention. Bloggers took notice and soon began suggesting her as the Republican vice presidential pick. Vogue magazine featured her in a story and photo shoot.

Palin was able to get two of her biggest priorities passed in the legislature – ethics reform legislation and her much anticipated natural gas pipeline bill.

Democratic lawmakers said she worked closely with them on rewriting the oil tax bill that drives more than a third of the state's economy.

"Her talent is following power and knowing where that power is," said Rep. Beth Kerttula, a Democrat from Juneau and the House Minority Leader.

Kerttula said Palin understood that introducing socially conservative issues at the time would have meant losing key Democratic votes on her oil and gas issues.

Still, many lawmakers have expressed disappointment that Palin, a self-described "hockey mom," showed little leadership on education and health care issues.

When the Palins were in Juneau, the importance of their family life was apparent in her day-to-day operations. Todd Palin often sat in the back of press conferences, and, lawmakers said, in many budget meetings. Their youngest daughter, Piper, would ride up the elevators after school to her mother's third-floor offices.

When a reporter once caught up to her at the end of a Saturday at the office to get a last minute quote, Palin told the journalist to "walk and talk with me back to the governor's mansion. I promised I'd get home and curl my daughter's hair for prom."

The governor explained that she would also be the couple's driver to the dance, since neither teenager was old enough to drive.

Thanks to record high oil prices, Alaska's coffers have seen unprecedented surpluses. Still, Palin angered lawmakers by slashing some $230 million out of the state budget without a clear explanation of what she had prioritized.

The governor was not communicating well with lawmakers on the budget, Rep. Kevin Meyer, a Republican from Anchorage, told reporters at the time.

"During the campaign, she seemed very uninterested in the day-to-day, mundane operations of government, so she got away with sound bites," said Andrew Halcro, a former legislator who ran against Palin in 2006 as an Independent. Now that she's in office, her administration seems "more about good [public relations] than about public policy. The gas line, raising the oil taxes ././. most of the heavy lifting was done by the Legislature."

Palin has been criticized for spending little time in Juneau, seldom coming to the state capital except when the Legislature was in session. Some Alaska lawmakers were so annoyed at Palin's frequent absences that they took to wearing "Where's Sarah?" buttons.

Palin, however, is still polling at 68 percent with the Alaskan public, a drop from 82 percent in a poll conducted in January, according to Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore. National polls show that approval of Palin as McCain's running mate is also waning.

In Wasilla, huge McCain-Palin signs with "Go Sarah!" dot the stretch of highway that runs through town. Support for her here is strong, though some residents have grown tired of the hordes of media that have inundated the locals since her pick in August.

Palin's two-story, childhood home is now a thrift store in the middle of town. Workers there say reporters keep showing up to ask whether Palin ever stops by to shop.

"I'd just like for us to go back to being a quiet, little town," said Agnes Emerson. "I'm tired of all the attention."

Sabra Ayres is a freelance writer on assignment for Cox News Service