Palin The Surprise Pick For McCain

And it’s on….

Coming almost 88 years to the day from the first time women were given the right to vote and almost 92 years after Jeanette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, would become the first woman in America to hold elected office as a Member of Congress, Palin would take center stage to accept McCain’s offer to serve as his running mate.

Only the second woman ever selected to run on a major party ticket, amidst much fanfare and excitement for a nominee who had been kept under wraps since in was first announced yesterday that the McCain campaign had finished its vetting process and had selected his choice, Palin was announced earlier today. Contrasted with his principle rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s announcement of Joe Biden late last week in the early hours of the morning, McCain’s announcement would come with crowds and speeches in the battleground state of Ohio.

Palin, the 44 year old governor of Alaska, made her name in politics as the short lived Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, appointed in 2003 by the man who, a short time later, would become her political rival. Uncovering scandals and corruption that had seemed to become a mainstream way of doing business in Alaska, she would resign a year later due to the “lack of ethics” she would find governing Alaskan politics.

Her exit from the political scene would be short lived. Working as a whistleblower to reveal the findings she had made as Ethics Commissioner she would be a frequent face on the front page of Alaskan papers. There she would target even fellow Republicans who had become a part of a culture of corruption in the state, including State Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich.