A nice Fred Barnes profile of Palin from a year ago:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/851orcjq.asp?pg=1

Some good clips.

* Palin is a conservative who only last month vetoed 13 percent of the state’s proposed budget for capital projects. The cuts, the Anchorage Daily News said, “may be the biggest single-year line-item veto total in state history.”

* In the roughly three years since she quit as the state’s chief regulator of the oil industry, Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy (virtually all male) and nearly every other foe or critic. Political analysts in Alaska refer to the “body count” of Palin’s rivals. “The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah,” says pollster Dave Dittman,

* Gov. Palin grew up in Wasilla, where as star of her high school basketball team she got the nickname “Sarah Barracuda”
for her fierce competitiveness. She led her underdog team to the state basketball championship.

* Palin’s tough spending cuts drew criticism from Republican legislators whose pet projects were vetoed.