Obama VS Palin

Obama vs Palin

In the early 1990's Obama was a lawyer and community organizer inside the Chicago Political Machine, and Sarah Palin was starting her career in Public Service by winning a seat on the Wasilla City Council. 

In 1997, Obama won a seat in the Illinois State Senate, while Sarah Palin was unseating the incumbent to become Mayor for Wasilla, Alaska. As Mayor, she reduced property taxes by 40%, improved the community through infrastructure investment, and earned the respect of her peers by being elected President of the Alaska Council of Mayors.

In June of 2003, Obama was busy raising money for a run at the US Senate. This included attending a lavish fund raiser for his Senate campaign, hosted by Tony Rezko, who was later indicted for corruption and accepting kickbacks. At the same time, Sarah Palin was busy taking on the good old boy network in Alaska politics, exposing corruption within her own party and taking a stand against politics as usual, which led to the resignation of state's Republican Party chaiman as well as the state's Attorney General.

As Barack Obama was missing almost half (45.5%) his votes in the US Senate while organizing his campaign for President, Sarah Palin was defeating former governor Tony Knowles 48% to 40%, despite being outspent by her political rival.

Barack Obama was inaugurated into the US Senate in January of 2005, and has been a member of the lowest rated Congress in US History, with all-time low approval ratings between 9% and 15%. After taking office in December 2006, Gov Palin earned approval ratings between 75% and 90% during her first two years in office.

In 2007, while Barack Obama was busy winning the designation "Most Liberal US Senator" by the National Journal, Sarah Palin, as Governor of Alaska, was killing the "Bridge to Nowhere" project, saving US Taxpayers $200 million.

Last year, while Barack Obama was talking about energy policy, Gov. Sarah Palin was drafting, introducing, and getting passed, a bill called the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, which would build a $26 billion natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Lower 48, helping reduce America's dependence of foreign energy.

This year, while Barack Obama was criticizing a campaign to eliminate the Federal Tax on gasoline to help consumers, Sarah Palin was suspending the Alaska state tax on gasoline and returning $1200 of increased energy revenues to Alaska's families.

Through all of this, Sarah Palin was also busy running a private business and raising a family of five children, the oldest of which has joined the Army and is deploying to Iraq next month.