John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, is 72-years-old with a history of melanoma cancer. His running mate, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin, is 44, and if McCain is elected, she may be a proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency. And if McCain is elected, and survives through two terms, Sarah Palin could very well be the frontrunner of the Republican Party in eight years.

To Palin critics, this is a scary thought. To them, Palin has an abysmal environmental record. She has been accused of abusing her power by trying to have an estranged family member fired, which has been called the Troopergate scandal. She has zero foreign policy experience, believes homosexuality is a choice, and has led scathing attacks on Democratic candidate Barack Obama that have incited some crowds almost to the point of violence.

Alaska is considered a beautiful state, the destination of many cruise lines and tourists. But according to Leonard Doyle of Independent UK, Palin has had no interest in keeping Alaska’s environment in the magnificent state it is in. Doyle reported that Palin “has an environmental policy so toxic it would make the incumbent, George Bush, blush.” Palin denies that climate change is man-made, at one point calling global warming a “hoax,” AlterNetreports. Palin is also suing the Bush administration for placing the polar bear on the endangered species list, according to The Washington Post on August 13 of this year.

Doyle states that “the US Geological Survey says climate change has shrunk Arctic summer sea ice to about 1.65 million square miles.” This is the polar bears’ habitat, so as their habitat is diminished, so is their population. Palin also criticized placing the beluga whale on the endangered species list. Doyle reported that “The Palin administration has allowed Chevron to triple the amount of toxic waste it pours into the waters of Cook Inlet…though the number of beluga whales in the bay has collapsed from 1,300 to 350.”

Drilling for oil in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, is another policy that Palin advocates. Even her running mate John McCain is an opponent of drilling in ANWR. Palin backed her stance during her convention speech, when she said, “We Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas and take it from a gal who knows…Alaska, we’ve got lots of both.”

Barack Obama is another critic of drilling in ANWR, pointing out that only after ten years of drilling would the oil from ANWR have any effect, and even at its peak, there would be enough oil to fuel the country for one month. Palin’s response? “What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet?”

In the Troopergate scandal, Palin has been proven to have abused her power as governor of Alaska. Newsweek reported in October that Palin pursued the firing of her ex-brother-in-law, Michael Wooten, so aggressively that she even dismissed the Alaskan public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, for not firing Wooten, claims Monegan. Wooten was a state trooper, and has a very ugly relationship with the Palin family.

According to Washington Monthly, an independent investigation came to the conclusion that Palin “abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110 (a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act…Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional.” In a very confusing response to this investigation’s findings that she did indeed abuse her power, Palin said, “Well, I’m very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any kind of unethical activity there.”

In Palin’s first national stage interview, according to AlterNet, she said that she was qualified in foreign policy because she can “see Russia from Alaska.” She also brought up that she had to broker deals in regards to trade agreements with Russia. David Corn of Mother Jones, an independent news website, conducted an investigation into this claim, and found that “the calendars tracking official meetings during her tenure as governor contain not one listing indicating she ever met with a Russian official.”

The Alaskan governor was also caught in a lie when she claimed that she visited troops in Iraq. In reality, The Boston Globe reports that Palin never set one foot in Iraq. She safely met with troops in Kuwait, while American troops were under attack just miles away in Iraq.

As an extremely conservative Christian, Palin isn’t exactly an advocate on gay rights. In an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric, Palin remarked upon homosexuality as being a choice. Palin said she has a gay friend, remarking: “She is one of my best friends who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice I would have made.”

At recent rallies, Sarah Palin has incited Republican crowds into a rage. “Our opponent…is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect…that he’s palling around with terrorists who target their own country. This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America.”

The crowd responds with cries like “Treason!” or “Kill Him!” Palin did not reprimand her supporters for calling for the assassination of the Democratic presidential candidate; she just politely smiled and continued her speech.

The domestic terrorist Palin is referring to is William Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground, a group that committed bombings in the 1970s. Obama had served on a council with Ayers before, as well as other Democrats and Republicans. Ayers is now a respected university professor. Obama has denounced the bombings as “detestable,” and he was only eight years old when they occurred.

Ironically, Palin’s husband Todd is actually a former member of the Alaskan Independence Party, or AIP, a group that calls for the secession of Alaska from the United States. According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of The Huffington Post, Todd Palin was a member of the AIP for seven years, from 1995 until 2002. Sarah Palin had attended AIP’s 2000 convention, was the keynote speaker at the 2006 convention, and issued a video address in 2008.

The Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has a casual relationship with the secessionist movement in Alaska. Palin has never dencounced AIP’s founder Joe Vogler, who stated in a 1991 interview, “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred of the American public.” Vogler had also said, “I’ve got no use for America, or her damned institutions,” which is displayed on the AIP’s website.

Conan O’Brien once joked, “Sarah Palin’s been spending the last couple of days being briefed by advisers on what she needs to know to be John McCain’s vice president. That’s true. Apparently, the first thing they taught her was CPR.” He said this for comedic value, but O’Brien has a point. If Republican nominee John McCain is elected, there is a very real chance that the former prisoner of war could succumb to health issues, leaving Palin to lead the nation. Thus, it is of the utmost importance that the American public familiarize themselves with her policies just as thoroughly as John McCain’s.