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At first, it gave her an upper hand with the Legislature.
Alaskans were quick to embrace this politician who arrived on the scene as the un-politician, or the outsider.
Like her bright red signs, Palin's folksy message about ethics reform and taking on the establishment caught fire.
"It was like running with a rock star," Tara Jollie, who worked on Palin's campaign for governor, said. "From going to an underdog to winner, to a national figure. That's wild."
And it was wild, trying to keep up with a candidate who was seemingly ordinary, but so extraordinary.
"She talks to everybody as though what she's doing right there at that moment is the most important thing in the world at that moment," Jollie said.
They were moments that surged into to a wave of momentum that Republican Party leaders didn't see coming.
But at the Kincaid Park Chalet in 2006 that changed. Palin supporters came to a Republican Party event with a secret plan to put on red shirts on cue.
"And we all put them on. And the room just instantly went red and it just freaked out a lot of people," John Bitney, then Palin's campaign manager, said. "Because I don't think at that point they hadn't gotten a real visual sense of the growing popularity of Sarah."
Suddenly campaign signs turned into weapons.
"The pushing and shoving, the yelling got started," Bitney said. "Somebody took a swipe and somebody with a yard sign."
A debate during the Republican primary with Gov. Frank Murkowski and John Binkley provided another pivotal moment.
The two men dominated the debate with their bickering. Palin was quiet, but delivered the decisive blow. The moment seemed spontaneous.
"You know guys, we owe Alaskans a better discourse than this," Palin said, jumping in while Murkowski and Binkley argued.
"We had strategized with the idea that we knew they were going to go at each other," Bitney said. "But I give her so much credit, just for her timing, tone and inflection. She really nailed it."
Palin's sense of timing and her ability to seize the moment eventually brought down a lion in Alaska politics -- a sitting governor -- and later, a former governor, to become the first woman to take the job.
The corruption scandals from the past administration gave the governor the high ground and brought uncertainty to a Republican-dominated Legislature.
"She came in, kind of putting the Legislature in a defensive posture," Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole, said. "Because she was talking about those unethical legislators."
Lawmakers became increasingly afraid to challenge Palin. They didn't want to be branded as opponents of a popular governor.
