Written by Melissa DeVaughn

February 2008

She has attracted attention for everything from her appearance to being a maverick Republican, but Sarah Palin says she just wants to straighten out Alaska politics.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin stands in her kitchen wearing a black skirt and silver-sequined sweater, dressed for the gala she is about to attend. In front of her are a BlackBerry and a cell phone, devices that rarely leave her side. It’s her favorite room in the large but unpretentious home her husband, Todd, designed and built five years ago. In the kitchen, 6-year-old daughter Piper’s artwork dominates the décor in an otherwise modern, black-counter-topped room that opens into the rest of the living space.

“I wanted to be able to see everyone, to talk to them from here,” Palin says, glancing at her BlackBerry while leaning on the countertop. She quickly pushes a few buttons on the device. It is a rainy Saturday afternoon, but the work of the state’s first female governor never stops.

Palin straightens up and walks over to a tall table, taking in the expansive view of Lake Lucille through the wall of windows along the front of the living room. Todd’s floatplane is docked just a hundred yards away, at the edge of the neatly mowed lawn. Three grebes float by, and a duck loiters at the edge of the grass.

Across the room, the front door bursts open and Bristol, 17 and the second-oldest of the Palins’ four children, rushes in. She’s a younger version of her mother, with the same striking, dark eyes and hair that have earned Palin a reputation as “the hottest governor in the country.”

It’s a moniker that Palin shrugs off. Although poised and confident on camera, she is nonchalant when it comes to the comments on her appearance.

When a reporter and photographers from Vogue magazine came to Alaska in December to do a story on her, Palin was sure she disappointed them. “In the interview you could tell that the writer was trying to get me to focus on the gender and appearance issues, but I kept talking about energy and national security, and not relying on foreign sources of energy,” Palin said. “Finally, she stopped me and said, ‘I know that’s what you want to talk about, but this is a women’s fashion magazine.’ I don’t know about fashion. It’s bunny boots and fleece and The North Face. So I tried to talk about that, but it’s just not the way I’m wired.”

Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, said that’s simply the way his daughter is. “She’s not phony. She never has been,” said Heath, who moved his wife, Sally, and four children from Idaho to Skagway in 1964, when Sarah was just three months old.

Since his daughter took office last December, Heath has received several T-shirts proclaiming his daughter the best-looking political figure around. “One says, ‘My governor is hotter than your governor,’ and the other one says ‘Alaska: the coldest state with the hottest governor,’ ” Heath said, laughing.

And she has gained notoriety online as well. Wonkette.com, a political blog, seems obsessed with Palin, admiring not only her appearance (she’s a Tina Fey look-alike, the blog claims) but appreciating the simple fact that she is not, as it reports, “one of those creepy old men” in politics. Another blog, Palinforvp.blogspot.com, likes her so much it has started a grass-roots campaign to get her elected as the nation’s next vice president.

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