Gov. Sarah Palin—Love Her or Hate Her

It has been less than two months since Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin burst on the national scene when she was introduced as Sen. John McCain's late-August vice presidential surprise. And from that moment, much of the country—women, in particular—has been obsessed with the meaning of Palin, 44, a mother of five and the first woman to be named to a national Republican ticket. Politically, the pick made instant sense. Stagnating in the polls and facing a demoralized Christian conservative base, McCain bypassed experienced GOP hands like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and buddies like former Democrat Sen. Joseph Lieberman for an antiabortion Washington outsider his campaign believed could shore up party support.

And she did. Her speech at the GOP convention injected excitement into a gathering that had felt like a wake and introduced the country to pit bulls and lipstick, hockey moms and bridges to nowhere, and a style of attack delivered with a wink, a wide smile, and an accent somewhere north of Fargo. Palin, whose infant son has Down syndrome, even managed to turn the revelation that her unmarried teenage daughter was pregnant into a "family values" decision, and her candidacy put the culturally divisive issues of abortion and gay marriage—which had been largely absent from the campaign debate—back on the table.

McCain's poll numbers spiked and thousands flocked to rallies that featured Palin and sometimes her husband of two decades, Todd, a snowmobiler, oil field worker, and commercial fisherman. Sales of her trademark frameless glasses as well as pro-Palin T-shirts like "Read My Lipstick" went through the roof, and comedian Tina Fey found perhaps the role of a lifetime in her Saturday Night Live parodies of Palin.

Though Palin assiduously avoided the press, reporters mined her background for hints at who this popular governor was and how she might lead the country if it came to that. The Idaho-born Palin, daughter of a school secretary mom and science teacher dad, moved to Alaska as an infant. She was an intense high school athlete and a Miss Wasilla beauty queen. She hopscotched among five colleges before graduating from the University of Idaho in 1987. Five years later, she was elected to the first of two terms on the Wasilla City Council. She began two terms as mayor in 1996 and, by 2006, was elected governor.

But as her biography has been filled in, Palin's cultivated campaign image as a "maverick" who will bring change to Washington has suffered. An investigation found that she abused her power as governor to settle a score against her former brother-in-law, an Alaska state trooper. She has been criticized for what some see as her inflammatory anti-Obama rhetoric. And her lack of experience—on display in disastrous interviews with CBS's Katie Couric—has alarmed even prominent conservatives, who suggested she step down. Her effect in the polls is now negligible, if not negative. Still, many expect Palin to remain a party player, no matter what happens on Election Day.