UI grad leading Alaska governor race

If Sandpoint native Sarah Heath Palin becomes Alaska’s next governor, she’ll have earned several distinctions.

She’d be the first woman to serve in that office. And she would have gotten there after blowing the whistle on her own party’s top officials for ethics violations – an act that left her on the outs with party operatives but gave her a strong image as a populist reformer.

She could also become the first University of Idaho graduate to serve as governor anywhere but Idaho. UI officials couldn’t find a record last week of any other Vandal governor serving outside the Gem State.

The 42-year-old Palin’s connections to North Idaho are a couple of decades old, but they’re unmistakable. She was born in Sandpoint and spent her first three months of life there before her parents moved to Alaska. She attended North Idaho College and then the University of Idaho, graduating in 1987 with a degree in journalism.

Now she’s the unlikely leader in the polls against her Democratic opponent, former Gov. Tony Knowles, heading into the final days of the election – though Knowles has been steadily drawing closer. Efforts to reach her for an interview late last week and early this week were unsuccessful, because she was busy with the election, a campaign official said.

“I can’t even get in touch with her,” said her father, Chuck Heath, in a phone interview from his Wasilla, Alaska, home.

Heath grew up in Hope, Idaho, and taught in Sandpoint schools from 1961 to 1964. He said he and his wife, Sally, have been getting in plenty of baby-sitting time as the race enters its final days.

“It’s very hectic. She’s putting in 20-hour days,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to do it, but she likes it.”

Heath said he’s been surprised at his daughter’s political career, given that she didn’t grow up in a particularly political family.

“I support my daughter, but neither my wife nor I are interested in politics,” he said. “I’m a hunter and a fisherman.”

Palin’s got at least a few fans pulling for her in Sandpoint.

“I’ve tried to make it known that we have a local girl that’s running for the governorship,” said Susie Puckett, a Sandpoint woman who was in classes taught by Palin’s father and who baby-sat the infant Sarah Heath. “I’m very awestruck by her – at 42 years old, and what she’s done.”

Not a lot of people remain in UI’s journalism program from Palin’s time there in the 1980s. She apparently didn’t work for any of the student media operations, such as the campus newspaper, said Kenton Bird, director of UI’s journalism school. After Palin won the GOP primary in August, Bird had a brief conversation with her and posted a quotation on his blog about her decision to attend UI.

“Geographically and demographically, Idaho was closely related to Alaska – beautiful and friendly,” Palin told Bird. “I wanted to go out of state (for college), and when I arrived in Moscow, I knew I’d made the right choice.”

Palin’s political career so far has included serving on the City Council and as mayor of Wasilla. She lives with her husband, Todd – her high school sweetheart – and their four children on the North Slope, where they fish commercially in Bristol Bay. She’s a lifetime member of the NRA, an avid hunter and fisher, and runs marathons, according to her Web site.

She earned the wrath of top GOP operatives in Alaska when she pressed complaints that the state’s party chairman had improperly used state resources for party business, leaked public records to a gas-drilling company, and showed favoritism toward companies he was supposed to help regulate. She then moved on to push complaints about ethics among officials linked to others in her party, a stance that took her from a position as the party’s “golden child,” being groomed for higher office, to that of an outsider.

It has cost her support and cash from the state party – the Alaska GOP has provided less than half as much money to Palin as it did to incumbent Frank Murkowski in 2002, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

But it won her support among voters. Palin beat Murkowski in the August primary and has run a popular campaign since.

“The timing was right,” Heath said. “People here were fed up with Murkowski, the incumbent governor, and he just got his behind kicked in the primary.”

Now she’s butting heads with a “seasoned politician,” he said, and the “dirty tricks” are coming out, with him “misquoting” her, accusing her of dodging debates.

“Her whole philosophy is honesty, and that’s what got her where she is,” Heath said. “She tells you what she thinks and that’s it.”

She’s a conservative Christian opposed to abortion and gay marriage, and she has a record of opposing taxes in her city offices. On a major issue for most Alaskans, a proposal to build a natural gas pipeline, Palin may be losing ground to her opponent, however. Recent news stories have noted that top energy industry officials were throwing their support behind Knowles, perhaps over concerns about Palin’s lack of knowledge and experience on energy issues.

Palin also draws media attention for something male candidates typically don’t – her appearance. The Anchorage Press described the former Miss Wasilla this way: “a small-town, angel-faced mother of four, an avid hunter and a fisher with a killer smile who wears designer glasses and heels, and hair like modern sculpture, who’s taking it to the boys ever so softly.”

Her tenacity has also drawn attention. A profile in the Anchorage Daily News noted her nickname from her days on a state championship high school basketball team, “Sarah Barracuda,” and included criticism from a political opponent who said she punished critics while serving in city government.

In a profile in the New York Times on Sunday, Palin said her campaign is focused on moving beyond political problems of Alaska’s past.

“We always have a choice,” she said. “We can go backwards and be real negative, or we can go forward and be positive.”