Alaska Senator Republican Ted Stevens, convicted of seven felonies, is being persistently pressurized by fellow Republicans to step down from the Senate. John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have wasted no time in separating their campaign from the “corruption and insider dealing that has become so pervasive in the nation's capital.”

Washington, Oct 2: People who know Sarah Palin, and have watched her swift rise from small-town mayor to Alaska Governor to history-making vice presidential nominee, say she needs to be herself in her debate Thursday with her Democrat rival Joe Biden even if it means slipping up or appearing to fall out of step with John McCain's campaign.

“What I would tell her is ... Let Sarah be Sarah,” FOX News quoted Palin’s former pollster David Dittman, as saying.

Anchorage (Alaska, US), Sept. 30 : The small town common folk tag that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been touting across the American political landscape while introducing her family, is not true.

A check of the financial records 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.

Anchorage (Alaska), Sept. 18 : Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private e-mail account has been hacked, and is being widely read on a website going by the name of gawker. com.

A Fox News report said that the web site has published family photos and snapshots of e-mail exchanges the Alaska governor had with her colleagues.

Gawker says the-email account has since been shut down, but it will leave the images up on its site for all to see.

Anchorage (Alaska), Sept. 17: Sarah Palin’s husband Todd Palin is also referred to as “Alaska’s First Dude”, and in his first major TV interview, he told FOX News that his wife is destined for higher positions.

Todd said that Sarah’s nomination as Republican vice-presidential nominee did not come as a “huge surprise” to him, as he believed her sudden ascent from first-term Alaska governor to history-making vice presidential nominee had always been a “possibility”.

He also talked about snowmobile racing, hockey, fishing, moose hunting and working on the Alaska oil fields.

Anchorage (Alaska), Sept. 15 : Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin first gripped a gun at the age of eight and made her first kill at ten.

The moose hunting mum-of-five grew up shooting animals and skinning them on the spot before hauling the meat home for the family freezer.