• Font Size    

Featured Slideshows

Celebrities Separated At Birth?
E-mail

Close Window E-mail This Page

Maverick McCain Selects Reformer Gov. Palin As VP

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

The information you provide will be used only to send the requested e-mail and will not be used to send any other e-mail communications. Read more in our Privacy Policy

Send E-mail

   Print     Share +
Aug 29, 2008 11:18 pm US/Eastern

Maverick McCain Selects Reformer Gov. Palin As VP

 Campaign '08 Complete Coverage

 A Closer Look At The Veeps
Reporting
Lou Young
DAYTON, Ohio (CBS) ― Governor Sarah Palin appeared on the national stage Friday as Senator McCain's candidate for the vice presidency. The articulate, attractive,  maverick conservative is also a wife, mother, and reformer from humble origins. "I was just your average hockey mom in Alaska," she said.

Palin is from Wasilla, Alaska where she served on the town council and became mayor. She's a reformer who took the governor's job by bucking the Republican establishment, and seemed quite comfortable making a bold-faced gender grab for the 18 million votes that were cast for Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

"Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling in America, but it turns out the women aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all," she said.

Senator McCain believes she is the maverick partner he needs. Palin is pro-life; the mother of five gave birth to a boy four months ago diagnosed with Down Sydrome. Abortion, she said, was never an option.
She supports the Iraq war. Her eldest son has enlisted with the Army and deploys there next month.

Although she is opposed to gay marriage, she did veto a bill that would've denied gay state employees family benefits for their partners.

The governor also levied heavy taxes on the oil industry in Alaska.

"It's always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk to go along with the status quo, but I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship was built," she said.

A former state champion point guard on the basketball court, she was also a beauty contestant in 1984, the year Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman ever to run on a national ticket. Vacationing on Fire Island this weekend, the Queens democrat says she believes Palin is up to the job.

"I do know John McCain. I served with him. I kind of doubt he would put somebody in that position that he didn't think could walk in it," Ferraro said.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

WCBSTV.com's Most Popular Pages

You need the latest Flash player to view video content.
Click here to download.

Click here to bypass this detection if you already have the latest Flash Player.

Top Stories

Top News Stories

© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.