Sarah Palin NRA Life Member, Fisherman & Hunter

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Avid outdoors enthusiasts. Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family would regularly run 5k and 10k races.

Gov. Sarah Palin is a lifelong hunter and strong proponent of Second Amendment rights. A longtime member of the National Rifle Association, she told USA Today when she was running for governor as a Republican in 2006 that "We hunt as much as we can, and I'm proud to say our freezer is full of wild game we harvested here in Alaska."

Palin publicly applauded the Supreme Court's recent 5-4 ruling in District of Columbia vs. Heller that struck down the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns.


Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors, in Wasilla, Alaska, when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play. She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds. Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.

In 1984, Palin was second-place in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, winning a scholarship to help pay her way through college. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.

Palin holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics.

Her husband, Todd, is a Native Yup'ik Eskimo. Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile "Iron Dog" race four times. The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street. The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.

She briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband, Todd, her high school sweetheart. One summer when she was working on Todd's fishing boat, the boat collided with a tender while she was holding onto the railing; Palin broke several fingers.

On September 11, 2007, the Palins' son Track joined the Army. Eighteen years old at the time, he is the eldest of Palin's five children. Track now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September. She also has three daughters: Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7. On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome. She returned to the office three days after giving birth. Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin said. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

Details of Palin's personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose hamburger, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it.

Palin is strongly pro-life and belongs to Feminists for Life. She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination. While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with a state Supreme Court order and signed them into law.

She supported a democratic advisory vote from the public on whether there should be a constitutional amendment on the matter. Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii.

Palin's first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to gay state employees and their partners. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska's attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation.

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MTV Interview...



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What experiences has Obama had that make him more qualified to run the country than Palin?

Time and again squirming liberals who are pressed to name Obama’s major accomplishments tell us about his having presided over the Harvard Law Review and having worked as a “community organizer” (whatever that is). Comparing those “accomplishments” to Palin’s shows that she’s got a lot more under her belt than Obama.

- Palin cut wasteful spending in the Alaska budget.

- She pushed through a natural gas pipeline that her predecessors in Alaska had been trying to get built for thirty years.

- She’s refused federal earmarks for her state when she felt they weren’t necessary saying that she didn’t think it was right for people in the “lower 48” to pay for Alaskan projects.

- She’s fought to expand domestic drilling.

- She stood up to corrupt members of her own party (most notably Senator Ted Stevens).

What has Obama done that rivals any of these?

He gave a good speech at the 2004 Democrat convention? He’s spent most of a partial Senate term campaigning for President?

Say Anything Blog

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A humorous (maybe) comparison of Palin vs Barack...

Tale of the Tape: Sarah Palin vs. Barack Obama

Makes you think! And, she is not running for President...

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Photo by ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News

Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin reloads while shooting at the fur & feather station that features ground-level and airborne targets at the 5th Annual Alaska Ladies Charity Classic sporting clays shoot Saturday June 3, 2000 at Grouse Ridge Shooting Grounds

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Governor Sarah Palin Addresses America