Posted on 08/29/2008 2:01:24 PM PDT by nickcarraway
THE MAN: He's worked the oil patch, won the Iron Dog and takes care of the kids
That same week, his wife, Gov. Sarah Palin, was in Juneau requesting more money for the state budget and assuring legislators they'd soon see her plan for a natural gas pipeline that could one day be the most expensive construction project in North America. Then she flew to Fairbanks to wave her exhausted husband across the finish line.
It's not just his title as the state's reigning snowmobile co-champion that sets 42-year-old Todd Palin apart from the nation's other first spouses. And it's not that he's one of just five who are men.
White-collar jobs in law, education or health care are typical among the current crop of first spouses, but Palin spent nearly 20 years as a blue-collar employee in the oil fields of the North Slope. And every summer he heads west to his birthplace in Dillingham to work the Bristol Bay commercial salmon fishery from his property on the Nushagak River.
A lifetime of manual labor in the state's two largest and most physically demanding industries is helping Palin carve out his role as Alaska's first spouse, or "first dude," a nickname he has in common with the Kansas governor's husband, Gary Sebelius.
Like other first spouses around the country, Palin has been asked to champion an array of causes or institutions since his wife took office in December.
His favorite is steering young Alaskans toward stable jobs in the oil and gas industry. It's a singular choice among his counterparts, whose pet issues include schools, public health, domestic violence, poverty or the arts.
(Excerpt) Read more at dwb.adn.com ...
He’s at least part Inuit, that’s right.
Hi Mary, here’s an exerpt from the web:
Palin’s parents say they are not political and don’t know how she decided to turn her ambition and work ethic toward politics. Her Christian faith, they say, came from her mother, who took her children to area Bible churches as they were growing up (Sarah is the third of four siblings). They say her faith has been steady since high school, when she led the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and grew stronger as she sought out believers in her college years.
Palin doesn’t brandish her religion on the campaign trail, but that doesn’t prevent others from doing so. After she was first elected mayor, her predecessor, John Stein, objected that a Valley cable TV program had hailed her as Wasilla’s first “Christian mayor.” In a column for the local newspaper, he named eight previous mayors and added that he, too, was a Christian, despite a name that led some voters to suspect “I must be a non-Christian, have non-Christian blood or at least have sympathized with a non-Christian sometime in my career.”
http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/story/8334949p-8231037c.html
More precisely, ... her husband is Yup-ik Eskimo
Close Cyber, but it was Northern Exposure.
Sorry, but Iron Dog Racer's are hardly regular guys.
I know, a REAL man married to a REAL woman who support each other and their family, works for me.
Another article on FR says he is 1/4 Yup’ik.
Another article, link at post 84 on this thread says:
“His Yup’ik grandmother, Helena Andree, grew up in a traditional Native household in Bristol Bay and now lives in Homer.”
Yes, thanks. I still want the radio station....
Hot, hot, hot.
Guy looks fit and a suit hangs well on him .
Governor’s husband proves to be one tough dude
http://www.adn.com/sports/snowmachining/irondog/2008/story/317669.html
CRASH: Broken arm, kaput sled don’t stop him from crossing the finish line.
Not only is he the “First Dude,” but Todd Palin is one tough dude.
The husband of Gov. Sarah Palin, or “First Dude” as Alaskans have come to call him, survived a high-speed crash on Friday in which he broke his arm and had to be towed across the Chena River finish line in Fairbanks on Saturday after his snowmachine died. But he still finished the world’s longest, toughest snowmachine race in fourth place.
Not bad considering that the day before he was lying in the snow, curled up in the fetal position after crashing into a barrel that was hidden in the snow outside of Galena.
Of course, the governor would expect nothing less.
“The last thing he ever wants to do is scratch,” said Gov. Palin as she awaited her husband’s arrival in the subzero cold on the Chena River at Pike’s Landing Saturday. “If there’s any way he can finish the race, he’s going to finish it.”
Just like last year, Gov. Palin was there to wave the checkered finish flag for her husband when his partner, Scott Davis, towed him across the finish line. But unlike last year, Palin and Davis weren’t first.
...
The 43-year-old Palin, a four-time Iron Dog champ, said it was his worst crash in 15 years on the Iron Dog trail. He estimates he was going 50 mph when he hit the metal drum near the end of a runway on the outskirts of town.
“Usually if you see something and you know you’re going to hit something you can brace for it,” he said. “I didn’t see this.”
Not until after the race, when Palin got his arm checked out at Fairbanks Urgent Care, did doctors detect a fracture and put a cast on his arm.
ROFL
Sure does put conservative values front and center.
Obamer is an elitist to the core. The only dirt he ever got under his nails was from scratching Ayers backside.
The only thing I can see is that it takes away the argument that Obama is lightly experienced, but by picking Biden, Obama took away the "judgment" issue, at least if you measure judgment by "didn't vote for the Iraq War" argument.
I like this, an older person and a younger person on each ticket, a white guy and a politically underrepresented minority on each ticket. Now, the race can be about ideology, and not purely about identity politics.
He’s hot.
That was rude, idiotic and uncalled for newbie.
Grow up, get some manners or get lost
In your defense, Marysecretary
To be technical, Obama was elected to the US Senate on January 7, 2005.
He only logged in 143 days in the Senate while it was in session.
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