Anchorage Daily News

Tacked up prominently on a wall in Sarah Palin's downtown campaign headquarters is a newspaper clipping with a picture of two signs beside the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

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Sarah Palin

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The first one reads, "Canada my ass, it's Alaska's gas." Underneath it, the second sign says, "Sarah Palin."

That defiant message strikes just the right tone for Palin's gubernatorial campaign. She's cast herself as a Republican maverick, a party iconoclast battling for the nomination after battling for so long against its leaders.

It started in 2004, when as chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Palin exposed Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich for ethical violations when he was a commissioner.

Ruedrich admitted to leaking a confidential memo to an energy company lobbyist and conducting partisan political activity from his state office.

Ruedrich was fined $12,000, the largest civil fine ever administered in the state for an ethics case.

Then, in 2005, Palin teamed up with Eric Croft, a Democratic legislator and gubernatorial candidate, to file an ethics complaint against Gov. Frank Murkowski's longtime aide and then attorney general, Gregg Renkes.

Renkes faced conflict accusations for having a personal financial interest in a company that stood to benefit in an international coal deal he and Murkowski were putting together.

Palin and Croft pressed their case even after Murkowski issued a letter of reprimand and declared the case closed. Renkes resigned, saying he no longer wanted to subject his family to personal attacks.

Renkes may be gone, but Murkowski and Ruedrich remain. The first is an incumbent governor seeking re-election. The second is still the party's chief. To win the Republican nomination Aug. 22, Palin must go through both of them.

Palin has made it the signature of her campaign. She said that she represents Republicans who want change from that party hierarchy and that there are enough of them out there to carry her to November's general election.

"Our support is such a diverse mix of Alaskans, and they are those who wouldn't have supported Murkowski anyway," Palin told The Associated Press recently.

She said she also expects good turnout Aug. 22 from nonpartisan and undeclared voters who can vote in the Republican primary.

"We have a lot of inquiries every day: 'How do I vote for you if I don't choose to be under Randy Ruedrich's leadership?' " she said.

As for the third major candidate in the primary race, John Binkley of Fairbanks, Palin says he is cut from the same cloth as the governor.

"When you consider who Binkley has surrounding him, those are Frank's people," Palin said. "Those folks were on board with Murkowski until they saw the writing on the wall. Then they jumped on board with Binkley."

The main knock on Palin by her opponents is her lack of experience. Besides the AOGCC chairmanship, the 42-year-old Palin's public-office resume consists of being a former two-term Wasilla mayor and a city councilwoman.

She also ran for lieutenant governor in 2002, coming in second in a five-way race in the Republican primary. The winner of that primary, Loren Leman, went on to become lieutenant governor.

The closest this campaign season has come to a scandal involved Palin. The Voice of the Times, the last remnant of the defunct Anchorage Times newspaper, published an article that said Palin had used her Wasilla mayor's office computer for her lieutenant governor's campaign.

Palin dismissed the article as a failed attempt to dig up dirt on her.

"Let me help you out if you're looking for skeletons in my closet," she said. "I got a D in a macro-econ course 24 years ago in college (and) hollered at the wrong kid this morning for not taking out the garbage."

BACKING GAS LINE TO VALDEZ

When it comes to the main issue driving this year's election season, building a North Slope natural gas pipeline, Palin has been a vocal supporter of a competing proposal to Murkowski's producer-led project to Canada.

She has appeared in television ads for a project by the Alaska Gasline Port Authority that would parallel the trans-Alaska pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez, where the gas would be liquefied and shipped to the West Coast on tankers.

It's a project popular with Alaskans, particularly those living in towns along the highway route. But Murkowski says it's not viable, and legislators almost gleefully poked holes in the proposal when Port Authority officials recently presented it in the Capitol.

The proposal has no gas commitments from the leaseholders or firm buyers of the gas, tariffs would run about twice as high as the Canadian line and it might prevent a Canadian line from ever being built, lawmakers concluded.

Palin insists the problems can be worked out and a Canadian line can be built later, after the Valdez line.

"LNG is the wave of the future," she said. "They're going to get it from somewhere. I would love for them to get it from Alaska."

One of her most influential backers is former Gov. Wally Hickel, another Republican maverick who won his second gubernatorial term as the Alaskan Independence Party candidate.

Hickel is right in sync with Palin on the pipeline proposal.

"She understands common people," Hickel said at a Palin fundraiser in July. "I've watched politics in this state for years, obviously, and we're an owner state so different than any other country or state in the union. So we need a governor that really understands that."

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