Meet Sarah Palin Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sandpoint, Idaho

Governor Palin was born Sarah Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho on February 11, 1964. Her father was a teacher, her mother a school secretary. She has lived in Alaska since she was a small child. She is the complete frontier woman, an expert hunter, sharpshooter and fisher.

She attended college at Hawaii Pacific University, North Idaho College, the University of Idaho, Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska, and for her final year, once again the University of Idaho, from which she graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1987.

Answer: Her fierce basketball playing style

Palin has always been very competitive. Her fellow basketball players still remember her sharp elbows. She was point guard for her high school team, which won the girls' state championship in 1982. She also competed in the Miss Alaska beauty contest in 1984. She was a runner-up, but won Miss Congeniality.

She is an avid fisherman. And there is a men's magazine named "Barracuda", but she never posed for the cover.

Answer: Wasilla

Palin served on the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992-1996. At the time the town was home to less than seven thousand residents, actually the fourth largest population center in Alaska. She then was elected mayor and held that office from 1996 to 2002, when term limits prevented her from running again.

Answer: Alaska

In 2002, she ran for the office of lieutenant governor of Alaska, and lost. After serving two years as the chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she ran for governor of Alaska. She won by by a nine percent margin with 15,979 votes, defeating the former two-term governor, Democrat Tony Knowles. She was the first woman, and the youngest person, to attain the office of governor of the 49th state.

Answer: 5

She had five children at the time she was nominated.

In 1988, she married Todd Palin, an oil field production operator, fisherman, and four-time winner of Alaska's Iron Dog, a 2,000 mile snowmobile endurance race. He was born in Alaska and is one-eighth Yup'ik Eskimo, an Alaskan American ethnic group.

Answer: Sports Journalist

She was a news and sports reporter for television stations in Anchorage before her election to the city council of Wasilla. She took time out from television to have her children. It has been politics and public service for Sarah Palin ever since.

Answer: True

Comprising almost two million acres, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the largest protected wilderness in the United States.
Both John McCain and Barack Obama oppose drilling for oil in the Refuge. In a League of Conservation Voters questionnaire, Obama stated his view: "I strongly reject drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because it would irreversibly damage a protected national wildlife refuge without creating sufficient oil supplies to meaningfully affect the global market price or have a discernible impact on US energy security."

McCain's view: "As far as ANWR is concerned, I don't want to drill in the Grand Canyon, and I don't want to drill in the Everglades. This is one of the most pristine and beautiful parts of the world."

However, the great majority of Alaskans are in favor of drilling in the Refuge. This includes every politician holding office, or having held office, in Alaska.
Alaskan residents receive yearly dividends from oil-lease revenues. In past years the dividend has been as high as two thousand dollars for every Alaskan.

Answer: False

Palin is the second woman to run on a major U.S. party ticket. The first was former New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, who was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1984, running mate of former vice-president Walter Mondale.

Answer: The Bush Doctrine

The so-called Bush Doctrine is a term which refers to the foreign policies of the Bush administration, in regard to the war against terrorism. The term is subject to interpretation.

Palin holds conservative Republican views regarding abortion and gun control, and is against both. Troopergate is an Alaskan scandal involving Palin's dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter C. Monegan, who refused to fire a state trooper who is Palin's ex-brother-in-law. Palin allegedly requested that the trooper be fired because he was involved in a messy custody suit with Palin's sister.

Answer: Gave the speech, then boarded a plane home and had her baby there

Her doctor actually gave her permission to make the eight-hour flight back to Anchorage, she then drove to a hospital in Wasilla. There's no doubt that Sarah Palin is one tough lady.

Interestingly, on July 3, 2009, Palin announced she would be resigning from the governorship of Alaska some 18 months before completion of her term.

FT quizzes about political figures are required to be neutral. I've tried to be as neutral as possible in writing this quiz--thanks for taking it!