Ok...I am going to try this again...
Moderators...Due to length this will be over two posts...and seperate.
I was told I can post the info as long as I include both candidates so here goes..
Here is what I have found on Wikipedia on Palin:
City council and mayorship
Palin began her political career in 1992, running for Wasilla City Council as a supporter of the controversial new sales tax and with an advertisement advocating "a safer, more progressive Wasilla".[8] She won and served two terms on the council from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she challenged and defeated incumbent mayor John Stein, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes.[3] In January 1997, Palin fired the Wasilla police chief and library director. In response, a group of 60 residents calling themselves Concerned Citizens for Wasilla discussed attempting a recall campaign against Palin, but then decided against it.[9] The fired police chief later sued Palin on the grounds that he was fired because he supported the campaign of Palin's opponent, but his suit was eventually dismissed when the judge ruled that Palin had the right under state law to fire city employees, even for political reasons.[10] Palin followed through on her campaign promises to reduce her own salary, and to reduce property taxes by 40%.[3] At this time, state Republican leaders began grooming her for higher office. [11] She ran for re-election against Stein in 1999, winning by an even larger margin.[3][12] Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.[13]
While Mayor of Wasilla, Palin wore a "Buchanan for President" button during conservative Pat Buchanan's 1996 visit to Wasilla; Palin has stated that she "welcome all the candidates in Wasilla" and disagreed with the perception that she was endorsing Buchanan.[14] Buchanan described Palin as a "supporter" in an interview after she was selected as the Vice Presidential nominee by McCain.[14][15]
2002 election
In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a five-way race in the Republican primary. After Frank Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in mid-term to become governor, he considered appointing Palin to his Senate seat but instead chose his daughter, Alaska state representative Lisa Murkowski.[16]
Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission
Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission,[17] where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest.[18][3] After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican Party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail.[19] Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.[3]
Governorship
Running on a clean-government campaign in 2006, Palin upset then-Governor Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary.[3] In August, she declared that education, public safety, and transportation would be three cornerstones of her administration.[20] Despite being outspent by her Democratic opponent, she won the gubernatorial election in November, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles 48.3% to 40.9%.[3]
Governor Palin with sole U.S. Representative Don Young of Alaska who championed and secured funding for the Gravina Island Bridge project.Palin became Alaska's first woman governor and, at 42, the youngest in Alaskan history. Palin was also the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood and the first not to be inaugurated in Juneau, instead choosing to hold her inauguration ceremony in Fairbanks. She took office on December 4, 2006.
Palin initially expressed support for the Gravina Island Bridge project,[21] commonly known outside the state as the "Bridge to Nowhere." However, once it had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending and some federal funding was lost, Palin cancelled the bridge because Alaska's congressional delegation was unable to prevent the state of Alaska from having to pay for part of the bridge's construction.[22][23] Alaska still kept the federal money,[24] but she stated that Alaska should rely less on federal funding.[25]
She has challenged the state's Republican leaders, helping to launch a campaign by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young[26] and publicly challenging Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings.[22]
Palin frequently had an approval rating above 90% in 2007.[25] A poll published by Hays Research on July 28, 2008 showed Palin's approval rating at 80%,[27] while another Ivan Moore poll showed it at 76%, a drop which the pollsters attributed to the controversial firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.[28]
Energy and environment
Palin at Alaska Airmen's Trade Show in Anchorage, Alaska on May 10, 2008Palin has strongly promoted oil resource development in Alaska[29], and also helped pass a tax increase on oil company profits.[22][25] Palin has announced plans to create a new sub-cabinet group of advisors to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska.[30] After she was announced as Senator McCain's presumptive running mate, she stated that "I'm not one though who would attribute it [global warming] to being man-made."[31]
Shortly after taking office, Palin rescinded 35 appointments made by Murkowski in the last hours of his administration, including that of his former chief of staff James "Jim" Clark to the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority.[32][33] Clark later pleaded guilty to conspiring with a defunct oil-field-services company to channel money into Frank Murkowski's re-election campaign.[34]
In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state's North Slope.[35] This negated a deal by the previous governor to grant the contract to a coalition including BP (her husband's former employer). Only one legislator, Representative Ralph Samuels, voted against the measure,[36] and in June, Palin signed it into law.[37][38] On January 5, 2008, Palin announced that a Canadian company, TransCanada Corp., was the sole AGIA-compliant applicant.[39][40] In August 2008, Palin signed a bill into law giving the state of Alaska authority to award TransCanada Pipelines a license to build and operate the $26-billion-dollar pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope to the Lower 48 through Canada.[41]
In response to high oil and gas prices, and the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers' rates.[42] She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send Alaskans $1,200 directly, paid for partially by the money given to the state of Alaska that was to be spent on the "Bridge to Nowhere,"[citation needed] and eliminate the state sales tax on gasoline.[43]
In 2007, Palin approved a $150 cash incentive for each Alaskan wolf to be killed by hunters in helicopters.[44] The incentive was called a "bounty" for killing wolves by Alaska Wildlife Alliance Director John Toppenberg.[44] She agreed with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to allow Alaska state biologists to hunt wolves from helicopters as part of a "predator control" program which was allowed under a provision in a 35-year-old federal ban on the practice granting 700 permits to the state of Alaska.[45] The program was heavily criticized by Defenders of Wildlife and predator control opponents,[45] and prompted California State Representative George Miller to introduce a federal bill making the practice illegal.[45] In March 2008, a federal judge upheld the practice of hunting wolves from the air, but limited its extent.[46]
In May 2008, Palin objected to the decision of Dirk Kempthorne, the Republican United States Secretary of the Interior, to list polar bears as an endangered species. She threatened a lawsuit to stop the listing amid fears that it would hurt oil and gas development in the bears' habitat off Alaska's northern and northwestern coasts. She said the move to list the bears was premature and was not the appropriate management tool for their welfare.[47]
She has called the global warming theory supported by Kempthrone and most scientists "unreliable", and asserted that human activity has not caused Arctic ice to melt, stating that "I'm not one though who would attribute it [global warming] to being man-made."[31]
Budget
Shortly after becoming governor, Palin canceled a contract for the construction of an 11-mile (18-kilometer) gravel road outside Juneau to a mine. This reversed a decision made in the closing days of the Murkowski Administration.[48]
In June 2007, Palin signed into law a $6.6 billion operating budget—the largest in Alaska's history.[49] At the same time, she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the construction budget in state history. The $237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the construction budget to nearly $1.6 billion.[50]
When on June 6, 2007, the Alaska Creamery Board recommended closing Matanuska Maid Dairy, an unprofitable state-owned business, Palin objected, citing concern for the impact on dairy farmers and the fact that the dairy had just received $600,000 in state money. When Palin found out that the Board of Agriculture and Conservation appoints Creamery Board members, she replaced the entire membership of the Board of Agriculture and Conservation.[25][51] The new board reversed the decision to close the dairy, but later in 2007, with Palin's support, the unprofitable business was put up for sale. There were no offers in December 2007, when the minimum bid was set at $3.35 million,[52][53] and the dairy was closed that month. In August 2008, the Anchorage plant was purchased for $1.5 million, the new minimum bid; the purchaser plans to convert it into heated storage units.[54]
Public Safety Commissioner dismissal
Main article: Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal
On July 11, 2008, Palin dismissed Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan for not adequately filling state trooper vacancies, and because he "did not turn out to be a team player on budgeting issues."[55] She instead offered him a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he turned down.[56][57]
Her power to fire him is not in dispute, but Monegan alleged that his dismissal may have been an abuse of power tied to his reluctance to fire Palin's former brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin's sister, Molly McCann.[58] Palin is currently being investigated by an independent investigator hired by the Alaska Legislature[59] to determine whether she abused her power when she fired Monegan.[60][61]