Who is the woman chosen by John McCain to be his running mate? Here is some background on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
-- Palin was elected the 11th governor of Alaska in November 2006. She was also the first female governor of that state.
-- She lost the Alaska Lt. Governor's race in 2002.
-- She was mayor of Wasilla City for six years
-- In 2003, Palin was appointed Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
-- In 2004, she resigned the position of Ethics Commissioner over what she called a lack of ethics when her Republican colleagues ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest.
-- Palin governs a population of just more than 680,000 people. Orange County, Fla. has a population of 1.66 million people, or 35 percent more than the entire state of Alaska.
-- On Aug. 1, Palin's administration was authorized to award a license to TransCanada Alaska to build a 1,715-mile natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay on Alaska's North Slope to a hub in Canada.
-- In 2007, Palin joined McCain in opposing the "Bridge To Nowhere," a $398 million bridge that would have connected Ketchikan, which is on one Alaskan island to an airport on a nearby island. The project became a national symbol of federal pork-barrel spending.
-- Palin is 44 years old, younger than Barack Obama
-- She recently came under scrutiny of an investigation by the Republican-controlled legislature over the possibility she ordered the dismissal of Alaska's public safety commissioner because he would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.
--Palin is married to Todd Palin, a native of Alaska, who is a production operator on the North Slope and four-time champion of the Iron Dog -- the world's longest snow-machine race.
--She has five children. She gave birth in April 2008 to a boy with Down syndrome. Another son enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 11, 2007.
-- Palin has a journalism degree and worked as sports reporter.