'Hockey mom' becomes surprise GOP VP pick

She’d been the mayor of the small Alaskan town of Wasilla for six years, and was a rising star in the Alaska Republican Party. 

Then, she took on the entrenched party establishment. It was a risky move and nobody could have predicted what would happen next.

The year is 2004 and Sarah Palin fears she’s jeopardized her political future by blowing the whistle on the corrupt practices of the chairman of her own party.

IVAN MOORE, POLLSTER: The fact that you had just made a mortal enemy of the most powerful person in the Republican party when you’ve got ambitions as a Republican politician just made it a pretty extraordinary sequence of events. 

But, it turns out, she may not have hurt her career at all. Alaskans are growing tired of what many thought was a corrupt statehouse and Palin is building a reputation as a maverick, willing to take on the good ol’ boy system.

KAYLENE JOHNSON, BIOGRAPHER: It identified her as someone outside the mainstream and outside politics as usual in Alaska. 

Palin, possibly sensing opportunity and possibly out of conviction, goes on the attack again, this time against State Attorney General Gregg Renkes.

Once again, she alleges an ethics violation by a high ranking state official and under pressure, Renkes resigns, something palin doesn’t expect.

SARAH PALIN: It seemed that the guys in Juneau, Governor Murkowski and Renkes, they were so adamant about Renkes not resigning that I think this has taken a lot of us by surprise.

MOORE: Politically, that set her up beautifully, because it really kind of cornered the market on the honesty and integrity front. 

Palin is cementing her reputation as a reformer and soon sets her sights on the highest office in Alaska. Governor Frank Murkowski, her former mentor is powerful, with more than two decades of service in Alaskan politics but he isn’t exactly riding a wave of popularity at the time.

MOORE: He was on his way to becoming categorically not only the least Gopular Governor in Alaska history, but at the time, categorically the least popular Governor of all the Governors in all the 50 states.

In October 2005, without backing from the Republican party, Palin officially throws her hat into the ring to become the next governor of Alaska. 

JOHNSON: It was certainly a David and Goliath sort of a race at that time. She was not getting the support from the Republican Party because she had been a whistle blower within the party.  

It seems Palin’s message is striking a cord with the Alaskan people. She easily rolls over the incumbent governor.

STEPHEN HAYCOX, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA, ANCHORAGE: They were, if you will, ‘whupped’ by a one-woman show. 

MOORE: It’s not often you have an incumbent governor who fails to even get to 20 percent, in terms of the votes.  Sarah Palin got 50 percent—and really just ran away with it. 

In the general election, she attacks her Democratic opponent, another Alaskan career politician, former two-term governor Tony Knowles, with the same gusto.

In the lead-up to the election, Palin promises sweeping ethics reforms fiscal responsibility. She supports big projects, she’s hoping, with big benefits. One project, a hugely expensive plan to build a bridge connecting Gravina Island, population 50, to a large city on the mainland. Its estimated to cost $400 million dollars. The project is controversial - dubbed “the bridge to nowhere”  and later, becomes an even more contentious issue- one she won’t shake anytime soon. A week before the election, she pledges support.

PALIN, OCTOBER 2006: You know I support these infrastructure projects that will build Alaska and it’s cheaper to do it today than it is tomorrow...

And on election night...

MAN: Palin has 52.2. Tony has 36.75.

The room erupts in cheers. Palin smiles. People chant “Sarah! Sarah! Palin’s win is convincing. 

PALIN (holding Piper): With God’s grace, we will not let you down Alaska.

JOHNSON: The timing was exquisite. She was the right person at the right time.

On December 4^th, 2006 Sarah Palin is sworn in. At age 42, she becomes both the youngest Alaskan governor and the first female to ever hold the office.

PALIN: I ran for governor not thinking I’m better than anyone but offering opportunity for the mantle of leadership to be passed. 

As governor, she makes a big impression in a short time. One of her first acts is to get rid of the governor’s plane.  In a bit of political theater, she puts it up on eBay.

JOHNSON: That jet represented really everything that was wrong with the government and the Republican Party in Alaska at that time. 

The plane doesn’t actually sell on eBay, but she is able to unload it to a private businessman. The next stop for Palin, tax reform. In a brazen move, she hits big oil hard.

TIM BRADNER, ALASKA JOURNAL OF COMMERCE: Governor Palin has been very tough on the petroleum industry. It was a great surprise to the companies.

Working with the legislature, Palin triples taxes on the big oil producers— generating huge revenue for the state— and provides $1,200 checks to every Alaskan to help with soaring energy costs. 

HAYCOX: Her attack, if you will, on the oil industry has been utterly central to her political rise in Alaska.

But not everyone in the legislature agrees with her tactics. Lyda green, president of the Senate and a fellow Republican, gives her governor low marks. 

LYDA GREEN, PRESIDENT OF ALASKAN SENATE: I would say it would be a C-minus.  Some of the things she said in her campaign are not what she followed through with as governor. If she and I had been sitting side-by-side years ago voting, we would have had an identical voting record. That would not be the case today.

On social issues, Palin is staunchly conservative: She favors teaching creationism alongside evolution in schools and opposes abortion, even in cases of rape.  But, as governor, she doesn’t push this agenda.

HAYCOX: I think she had to suppress her social agenda in the interest of what has to be the state’s priority right now,  the development of its energy resources.

Governor Palin turns her attention to one of her campaign issues, an Alaskan pipeline. The pipeline would carry natural gas from Alaska, through Canada, and down to the lower 48 states reducing America’s dependence on foreign energy sources and paying huge benefits to the state of Alaska.

HAYCOX: Eighty percent of Alaska’s general fund revenue is generated by taxation of oil production.  The gas line represents new economic opportunity for Alaska.

Governor Palin is working hard across party lines toward striking a deal for a pipeline, and she’s riding high.   

MOORE: To maintain an approval rating of over 80 percent is quite something.

Politically, she’s winning her battles all while juggling her responsibilities as a mother.  She’s running a state, and a home, filled with 4 kids. 

COLE: She’s a great mom.  The truth is, you see her more with her children than without them.

But, as a mom, and as a governor, she doesn’t do any of it without her husband.

BRUCE: Todd has been a part of Sarah’s success the entire journey.

REPORTER TO TODD What title would you want to go by?

TODD PALIN: It doesn’t matter.

We all know what to call a “First Lady.” Up in Alaska, they come up with another name for Todd Palin. 

BOB LESTER, RADIO PERSONALITY: "First Dude." He’s the First Dude of Alaska. Alot of us still call him Todd but that’s kind of what we went with. He’s the first dude of Alaska. 

The "first dude" is a blue collar guy, still working as a fisherman and in the oil fields while his wife is in the statehouse. He has also become something of an Alaskan celebrity.

JOHNSON: The Iron Dog snow machine race is the longest snow machine race in the world.  through some really brutal Alaskan territory.  And Todd Palin has won that race four different times.

COLE: What’s interesting is, when he’s getting ready to run the Iron Dog, she knows how important that is to him, so she takes all the pressure off of him, does whatever it takes to juggle everything pretty much herself. 

The most powerful job in the state, a husband, four kids and a sky-high approval rating. She doesn’t know yet, but there’s a lot of surprise in store that’ll change everything.

MORE FROM DOCUMENTARIES

Documentaries Section Front

Farrah's Story See the next 'A Change of Face' episode this Sunday   Lockup Raw: Ganging Up Deadly suspicion   Sex Slaves in America   Sex Slaves - The Teen Trade   Sex Slaves in the Suburbs Witch Hunt   Lockup: Inside LA County ‘Lockup: Miami-Dade’ Documentaries Section Front   Add Documentaries headlines to your news reader: