Sarah - Tapa dura

Describes how the 2008 Republican candidate for vice-president used a message of ethical reform in state government to take on and defeat the political establishment in Alaska, rising from a small-town mayor to become the state's first woman governor.

Who is Sarah Palin? In SARAH, we learn that she is a former Wasilla High School basketball star, ex-beauty queen, and one-time journalist who wears a killer smile, designer glasses, and high heels. She rides in a 2,000-very-cold-mile snow machine race every year called the Iron Dog. She has filled more than a few freezers with moose that she shot herself, and she prefers caribou steaks to beef tenderloins. Her husband is part Alaska Native, a roughneck on the North Slope, and the family fishes commercially each year on Bristol Bay. Last but not least - as her adversaries learned painfully - she has the political instincts of a seasoned pro and an independent streak a mile long.