The week before I married on my family’s homestead in Alaska, we found out Sarah Palin had been picked to be Sen. John McCain’s vice-presidential running mate. This was big news for Alaska. Nearly everyone we knew was thrilled, even people who weren’t huge Palin fans. At the time, Palin was a popular governor who’d made a name for herself fighting a corrupt good ol’ boys system that had prevailed for too long in state politics. She was a Republican, but seen as a moderate who was willing to work with Democrats and take on powerful special interests, including the...
