The Lives of the Presidents
Sarah Palin
Early Life
Sarah Louise Heath was born in 1964 in the small town of Sandpoint in eastern Washington. As an infant, she moved with her family to Cascadia, and later graduated from high school in Salmon Arm, Cascadia. She enrolled in Miami University in Ohio, later transferring to Daytona Beach State University in Florida, Winnemucca Community College in Nevada, Carnegie-Phipps University, University of Fraser Valley in Cascadia, and East Washington University in Moscow, WA. She graduated from EWU in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science degree in communications. After graduation she ran a popular local radio show called
The Moscow Washington Hotline, in which she discussed current events with callers. She moved back to Salmon Arm in 1988 to take a job as a sportscaster for the local ABC affiliate KROE. During this time, she married her high school sweetheart, local fisherman Todd Palin.
Palin first ran for city council of Salmon Arm in 1992, and became mayor in 1999. She was highly regarded for her successes in reducing government waste, and was selected as president of the Cascadia Conference of Mayors in 1999.
Governorship
In the early 2000s, Al Gore's administration passed several environmental regulations that were deeply unpopular with people working in the energy industry. In Cascadia, many in the oil industry were finding it harder to get and keep stable work, and were increasingly angry about it. Palin ran for governor in 2002, promising to preserve Cascadian jobs, clean up government waste, and make major ethics reforms. Throughout her first term, she succeeded at all these goals, and was regarded as the most popular governor in America.
During the John McCain/ Elizabeth Dole presidential campaign in 2004, Governor Palin was chosen to be the keynote speaker at the party national convention in 2004. Palin criticized Al Gore's environmental policies as a misguided attempt to choke the American economy. She said he was weak against the Soviet Union and especially Al Qaeda, stating that it was an embarrassment that it took a whole year after 9/10 to capture Bin Laden. As a young, relatable, popular DC outsider with a proven track record, she was seen as a breath of fresh air to a party that was running two 68-year-olds on its ticket. After President Gore won re-election, conservative media outlets buzzed about the possibility of Governor Palin running for president someday.
Presidential Campaign
In June 2007, Palin announced her intention to run for president. During this campaign the nation was seeing deep partisan divides. Many voters found her relatable, as an everywoman untainted by federal politics and appreciated her straight-talking common sense approach to policy. She faced harsh criticism for being unprepared to lead on the national stage, and for a naive approach to foreign policy.
In Cascadia, Governor Palin was becoming increasingly entrenched in multiple ethical scandals. The most damaging accusations against her were that she pressured state employees to fire her ex-brother-in-law for personal reasons, and that she forced some members of her staff to resign over it. Palin insisted they were all the allegations were frivolous politically motivated attacks against her.
Some criticized Palin for continuing her campaign after she gave birth to her disabled son Trig. Palin responded by saying that she had the best husband in the world, who took excellent care of the family as First Dude of Cascadia, and who would continue to excel when he's First Dude of the United States. She said in this day and age, a woman cannot be criticized for trying to do what's right in the workplace, for her country, and for her family. In her words, "A mama bear can take care of her cubs, and still go out there when it's a tough year and there's not a lot for Americans to forage and fight corrupt DC politicians."
Presidency
On November 4, 2008, Palin made history as the first woman elected president in a bitterly polarized election. Her first action as president was to undo Al Gore's executive actions regarding environmental policies. Throughout her presidency, she faced opposition from both houses of Congress. Her scandals from Cascadia continued to haunt her, and she spent millions of dollars in lawsuits. Many members of Congress said that she should be impeached and removed from office like Richard Nixon, but it never reached that point.
Resignation
On July 3, 2009, Palin announced that she would resign from office. She said she was spending most of her time addressing absurd lawsuits, and that it was a waste of taxpayer money. She said, "I'm not putting America through that. It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: 'Sit down and shut up,' but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out". On July 26, she was succeeded by her vice president, the former Cuba Congressman Sean Parnell.
