Palin's Family Has Always Held a Place in Her Politics

"My kids knew about it, like, the day she found out she was pregnant," said Rani Roby, 37.

Charting new waters in disclosure, the campaign first identified Johnston only as "Levi," and pleaded for privacy. Two days later the local high school hockey star was seated in the VIP box of the Republican National Convention as a newly minted fiance.

Reporters next questioned Todd and Sarah Palin's story of their 1988 elopement -- to save their parents the cost of a wedding after a slow fishing season. They noted that Track was born less than eight months later. Todd's 1986 DUI arrest surfaced. And at midweek, the campaign denied a report of a Palin affair that the National Enquirer had not yet published.

"From the inside, no family ever seems typical," Palin told the convention, to thunderous applause. "And that's how it is with us. Our family has the same ups and downs as any other."

* * *

The state investigation now dubbed "Troopergate" is also a family affair.

In 2000, while she was Wasilla's mayor, Palin wrote a hearty letter of recommendation for her sister Molly's boyfriend, a state trooper named Mike Wooten.

"I wish America had more people with a grace and sincerity that mirrors the character of Mike Wooten," she wrote.

The couple married the next year. But by 2005, the marriage was falling apart, and Palin became her sister's defender.

After a panicked phone call from Molly suggesting that Wooten was on the verge of violence, Palin and her son Track drove to their relatives' house and peered through a window to watch an argument. Describing the scene later to a police investigator, Palin said: "Mike said that 'if your dad helps you through this divorce, he will eat an f'ing bullet.' "

Wooten said he never made the threat. But over time, members of Palin's family filed more than two dozen complaints against him. An investigation showed that he misused state equipment by demonstrating a Taser on his 10-year-old stepson, drank a beer in a patrol vehicle and shot a moose illegally.

By the time Palin became governor, Wooten had been suspended for five days. But Todd Palin asked then-Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan for a briefing. And Sarah Palin inquired by phone and in person, and at least three times in e-mails.