McCain Daringly Picks Palin for VP

Last Friday, John McCain announced his running mate to offset the bounce and media hype that his opponent, Barack Obama, would get from his historic speech. Everyone expected him to pick either Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, but he fooled everyone with a surprise pick.

McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, a little-known figure on the national scale. Here's a little bit of background on Palin.

Palin is an evangelical Christian "hockey" mom, who hunts and fishes. She has five kids--two boys and three girls--all with extraordinarily bizarre names: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig. Yikes. She gave birth to her youngest son, Trig, in April knowing fully well that he would have down syndrome. She is strongly pro-life and said she never even considered aborting him, calling him "a gift from God."

Her husband Todd is a (bearded) commercial fisherman, is a world champion snowmobile racer, and is a member of the National Steel Workers Union. A few days after Palin's selection, it was discovered that her 17 year-old daughter is pregnant and she is going to marry the father, Levi, who is also 17.

Sarah Palin was the runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant when she was younger and was a member of the local PTA before she became the mayor of Wasilla, which had about 6,500 people in it when she was mayor.

In 2006, she defeated the incumbent Republican governor in the primaries and defeated a former Democratic governor in the general election. She has been in office for 21 months. As governor, she has taken on members in her own party, has dealt with corruption in both parties in her state, and proudly calls herself a reformer.

Here's her stances on some major issues.

Palin is pro-Iraq war, and is a strong believer in Reaganomics--lower taxes (including the wealthy) and lower government spending. Palin is also a strong advocate for offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR, but has only convinced McCain on the former. She is a lifelong NRA member and a champion of right to bear arms.

Palin is and has always been strongly pro-life, even in the case of rape and incest. Her decision not to abort her youngest son, Trig, and her daughter's decision not to abort her unborn child are popular with pro-life groups.

She vetoed a bill denying benefits to gays, as unconstitutional, but is mostly against gay rights such as same-sex marriage. She is against stem cell research and believes that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. She also opposes explicit sex-education programs.

Those are the facts. Tomorrow, I will go more into what kind of impact she's had on the race this past week, and what impact she might have in the future.