I would compare her to Paul Ryan, who was Romney's pick four years later. At the time, Ryan was a six-term Representative from Wisconsin (from a district with about 700,000 people, Kenosha and Racine), elected in 1999. Ryan didn't have any leadership roles until after he was Romney's running-mate, except for chairing the House Budget Committee since 2011. Prior to joining Congress, Ryan held various aide positions for Republicans.
Contrasting to Palin, she first ran for office in 1992 for Wasilla City Council and won a four-year seat (Ryan was working as a waiter, a fitness trainer, and other odd jobs). In 1996, Palin ran for mayor of Wasilla and won two three-year terms (Ryan became a speech-writer for VP candidate Jack Kemp, and ran for Congress while Palin was running for her second term as mayor). Palin then ran in 2003 for the Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and won that two-year seat (in 2000, the first of only two Ryan bills to become law was passed, renaming a post office in his district). In 2006, Palin became the ninth Governor of Alaska (the other Ryan bill to become law was passed in 2008, lowering the excise tax on arrow shafts).
I would say that Palin had the clearly stronger resume than Paul Ryan, but Ryan didn't get the same treatment that Palin got.
It's obvious by contrast that the establishment feared what Sarah Palin represented and made it a mission to take her out. It's also what they're doing to President Trump now.
And Paul Ryan became a Never-Trump backstabbing RINO who sabotaged the GOP's chances to hold the House in 2018.
-PJ
Well put Political_Junkie! (In terms of comparing Governor Palin’s resume to former Speaker Ryan’s) To add:
As has been stated elsewhere on the thread, Palin had to resign because she didn’t have money to fight back all the high powered frivolous lawsuits thrown her way. She is not rich like Donald Trump. And Alaskan governors aren’t afforded the same legal immunities as the President either. It didn’t help that even to win Governor of Alaska, she ousted the state’s then most powerful Republican: Frank Murkowski. (RINO Senator Lisa Murkowski’s Father) - So she never had the support of the state’s GOP to begin with. She was against them from day 1.
Upon leaving office, Palin’s endorsements and support of candidates like Rand Paul and Nikki Haley catapulted them to front runner status in highly contested races. Rand Paul was in 5th place in Kentucky polls I think! Haley was also behind. Now look where they are!
On her Facebook profile (Facebook was still new back then), she coined the term ‘death panels’ to describe what government rationing would be like under Obamacare and permanently altered the national discourse over the matter.
She was arguably the leading voice of the Tea Party movement which garnered massive Congressional gains for the Republicans in 2010. At the height of the Obama era. The Obama Admin did damage enough but imagine how much more without the seats that were won in the nick of time!
She as mum on Mitt Romney in 2012 as his people were among the many forces trying to keep her down and out of the running...but she was all in for Trump from the get-go and arguably set the stage for his candidacy! We, her country, owe her efforts a huge THANKS. And we see to what great personal cost to her that much of this came.