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" I didn&amp;#039;t think this election could get much more interesting, but it just did. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain just announced his VP pick. Sarah Palin is a mother of five, a marathon runner, and, as governor of Alaska, has approval ratings around 90 percent - that&amp;#039;s higher than any other governor in the country. I&amp;#039;m so excited to see a woman back in this race! And Governor Palin is a woman that people across party lines should respect. She&amp;#039;s got experience tackling corruption in politics (she exposed and challenged corruption within her own party), and as she said in her acceptance speech today, she&amp;#039;s used to standing up to &amp;quot;the good ol&amp;#039; boys club.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s a big supporter of our troops, in part because her oldest son is being deployed to Iraq next month. And most importantly, I think she&amp;#039;s a great role model for young women who want to get involved in politics. Governor Palin doesn&amp;#039;t come from some high-powered, well-connected Washington family. She was raised in Alaska, and is the daughter of an elementary school teacher and a school secretary. Governor Palin&amp;#039;s first experience with politics? She joined the PTA. From there, though, she worked her way up to city council, to mayor, to governor, and now, to the vice presidential candidate. (The first female candidate was Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984; Governor Palin is the first Republican woman nominee.) Her story shows that you don&amp;#039;t have to follow any one path to get to the top. You&amp;#039;ve just got to have a whole lot of determination and grit as you go down whatever path you choose. In her acceptance speech, Governor Palin gave a shout-out to Senator Hillary Clinton. She talked about the &amp;quot;18 million cracks&amp;quot; Senator Clinton&amp;#039;s supporters made in the &amp;quot;highest, hardest glass ceiling in America.&amp;quot; But she said, &amp;quot;It turns out the women of America aren&amp;#039;t finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.&amp;quot; The selection of Governor Palin is another major step towards doing just that. But I&amp;#039;ll be interested to see if she encounters the same kinds of sexist treatment (being called a bitch, for example) that Senator Clinton was subjected to. No matter what happens, the next 67 days are sure going to be interesting. So did you watch the Governor&amp;#039;s speech? What do you think of her? Xoxo, Katie "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/life/a10430/democratic-convention-day-5-sarah-palin/>