Palins' finances unusual for Alaskans

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By Jerry Seper

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has introduced her family to the nation as small-town common folk since she burst onto the scene as the surprise pick for the Republican vice-presidential nominee last month. A check of financial records, though, shows the Palins live anything but a common life when compared with their fellow residents of their hometown of Wasilla.

Their combined income of nearly a quarter-million dollars last year was five times the median household income for Wasilla's 7,000 residents. They own a single-engine plane, two boats, two personal watercraft and a half-million-dollar, custom-built home on a lake that is worth three times the average of other homes in town.

For the future, they also have a 401(k) retirement account compliments of Todd Palin's years as an engineer with oil giant BP.

"Gov. Palin's story is emblematic of the American dream," McCain campaign spokesman Ben Porritt said.

The Palins have been hugely successful by most standards in both their public and their private lives, according to the records.

"As a person, she's consistent, honest and warm," said Cheryl Metiva, executive director of the chamber of commerce in the Palins' hometown of Wasilla. "As a politician, she's focused, direct and clear. And she's done a tremendous job of balancing her family life and with her public duties.

"You underestimate her at your peril," she said.

The couple's house was appraised this year at $552,100, which, according to Alaska magazine, was designed and built by Mr. Palin.

Mr. Palin, known in Alaska as the "First Dude," is a longtime commercial fisherman who maintains a highly sought-after commercial-fishing permit that has been handed down in his family from generation to generation. A native of Dillingham, Alaska, his mother is one-quarter Yup'ik Eskimo and his maternal grandmother is a member of the Curyung tribe, which is the source of the permit.

"Hard work and principled convictions have allowed her to catapult to being the most popular governor in America," Mr. Porritt said of the Republican candidate.