'Hockey mom' becomes surprise GOP VP pick

Just a year into her term as governor, Sarah and Todd Palin are riding high. He, as a cross country snowmachine champ and she as reformer with a near 80 percent approval rating.

MOORE: They’re  a pretty idiosyncratic, squirrely bunch, Alaskans.  They are sometimes tough to please.  And I don’t mean that in a negative sense.  So for her to a have achieved such adoring heights from the Alaskan public is quite something.

But even in this moment of triumph when all eyes are on Alaska’s first family, the Palins are keeping a secret.  Sarah, 44, is six months pregnant with her fifth child.

COLE: She wore scarfs and she wore jackets. Sarah was thin anyway, so she didn’t really show.

MORGAN: Not any of us knew about it. I mean her mom, her sister none of us.

COLE: I think initially she kept it secret just because she didn’t want it to be a distraction to the administration or to her job.

But there is also something different about this pregnancy. The Palins know that the child Sarah is carrying has Down Syndrome.

COLE: It took her some time to wrap her mind and her heart around all all that, both her and Todd.

In March of 2008, unable to hide her pregnancy any longer, Sarah Palin announces that she is seven months pregnant.

COLE: She did it kinda flippantly, as she was walking out the door to a press conference or something.  And I think everybody’s jaws dropped to their knees.

After assuring Alaskans she doesn’t anticipate taking any time off, Palin resumed her busy schedule.

In April, when both her delivery date and the Alaskan thaw were just weeks away, Palin flew to Texas. She was scheduled to speak at a Republican governor’s conference on energy when she got an unexpected surprise.

COLE: She woke up leaking amniotic fluid.

After calling her doctor back in Alaska, Palin delivers her speech as planned before making an eight hour flight home to give birth.

MORGAN: So she just got on the plane, even though she knew that contractions were gonna be starting pretty soon because she wanted to have that baby in Alaska.

At 6:30 the next morning, just hours after getting off the plane in Anchorage, Palin gives birth to a six pound 2 ounce baby boy that Sarah and Todd Palin name Trig Paxon van Palin.

COLE: When he was born, her daughters did not know that he had Downs Syndrome.  She intended to tell ‘em when she came back from Texas.

Just three days later, she is back to work and showing no signs of slowing down.

As spring slowly comes to Alaska, the  political talk of the nation is all about potential vice presidential running mates.

On the Republican side, the frequently mentioned names are well known: Romney, Ridge and Huckabee.

But by mid-summer, there are new names in the mix: Lieberman of Connecticut, Pawlenty of Minnesota and Palin of Alaska.

BRUCE:  I didn’t know if that was in her plan, or not.  So, I just dismissed a lot of those rumors for months. 

Though flattered to be mentioned in the same breath as some of those heavyweights, even Sarah Palin seems to think her chances of being picked are highly unlikely.

INTERVIEWER: Would you be interested in serving if you were asked?

PALIN: U h, you know, I really doubt that such a thing would happen. You have to keep things in perspective. I’m a hockey mom from Alaska. You do you really think that it is in a realm of possibily to be tapped. So, just considering the reality there, I don’t think it is ever going to happen, so I don’t really have to contemplate such a thing.

But just six weeks later Sarah Palin finds herself having to think about just that.

In a bold stroke, the Republican nominee Sen. John McCain decides to break with conventional wisdown and skip over all the big names on his list.

It is a stunning moment. Sarah Palin, virtually unknown outside Alaska, is suddenly thrust into the national spotlight.

The shock is total: and no more so than back in Alaska among her friends and family.

HEATH: And we had no idea this was happening. No idea at all. Complete surprise. 

BRUCE: I just dropped to the couch and just like, “Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh.  This is real.  This can really happen.”

MORGAN:  You know, she can keep a secret. We didn’t know she was gonna elope either.

Even Alaskans, familiar with Sarah’s political spunk and meteoric rise, are left scratching their heads.

MOORE: Up until the moment we heard about it when it was announced that McCain had picked her, I don’t think anyone up here took it remotely seriously. We’re not used to getting any kind of national attention.

No sooner had the cheering stopped than a chorus of critics begin pointing at her resume and asking “Is she qualified?”

HAYCOX: Being the mayor of a small town, perhaps 9,000 people, for not a very long time, and then serving as governor for only a year and a half, I think raises questions for everyone, not just for Republicans as to  how qualified she might be.

Even state politicians in Alaska are quick to question whether her temperament and executive style are suited for the second highest office in the land.

GREEN: I found that many people who desired to get in to talk to her, to give proposals, to hear information or just to visit with her were not allowed to get in. Many people found it difficult to get phone calls returned, and so there was sort of a lack of communication.  Someone phrased it as “a bunker mentality.”

Soon after the national media descend on Alaska to learn more about John McCain’s running mate some begin wondering how much the McCain campaign knew about Palin before choosing her.

For openers, Troopergate, a state ethics investigation examining whether Governor Palin abused her authority when she fired her public safety commissioner.  The commissioner, Walt Monegan, claims he was fired because he would not dismiss a state trooper who had divorced the governor’s sister.

Governor Palin denies that.

PALIN: “Commissioner Monegan was not terminated because of concerns about Trooper Wooten.”

Governor Palin insists that the public safety commissioner was dismissed because he resisted her efforts to rein in spending.  An investigation is underway.

SEN. HOLLIS FRENCH, D-ALA.: There’s a good chance that the governor was using her public office to settle a private score. And we need to get to the bottom of that.

GREEN: Right now, with the special investigation going on, I think that there are questions to be asked, and information that needs to be gained

But if there are skeletons in the Palin closet they won’t be there long. With the entire family under a media microscope and it’s only days before another Palin family secret is front page news.

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: