ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The 18-year-old daughter of former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has given birth in Alaska to a son.

People magazine reports that Bristol Palin gave birth to Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston on Sunday. He weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces.

Relative Colleen Jones tells the magazine the baby is fine and Bristol is “doing well.” Jones is the sister of Bristol’s grandmother.

The father is Levi Johnston, a former hockey player at Alaska’s Wasilla High School. He has said he and Bristol plan to marry.

Palin created a stir in September by announcing the pregnancy as she prepared to accept her nomination at the Republican National Convention.

The governor’s office called the birth a private family matter.

WASHINGTON – Despite the furor over a $150,000 campaign shopping spree for GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the Republican Party continued to spend money on clothing and accessories for her in the contest’s final weeks, new campaign reports show.

The latest buys ranged from $4,383 at Saks Fifth Avenue and $2,130 at Nieman Marcus, to $148 at Victoria’s Secret locations in Philadelphia and Cincinnati. Another $430 was spent at Aldo, a shoe store. The buys were listed under the heading of “campaign accessories.”

The party also paid $55,700 in “consulting” fees to Lisa Kline & Co., a New York fashion stylist. And the McCain-Palin presidential campaign, which was funded with $84 million in tax dollars under the presidential public campaign financing system, dispensed $34,384 to Amy Strozzi, a celebrity makeup artist. The campaign had previously paid Strozzi $36,000, disclosed in earlier campaign finance reports.
  
Party spokesman Alex Conant said the expenditures listed in the party’s October and December reports “were the result of coordinated expenditures at the campaign’s direction.”

“Accessories have been returned, inventoried, and will be appropriately dispersed to various charities,” Conant said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin has added to her financial disclosure forms two free trips that she took nearly two years ago but failed to report.

Palin, who was Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, made the disclosures last month, but after Election Day when she and McCain lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The trips were first revealed in a story by The Associated Press in October.

The free trips were taken in April and May of 2007 and should have been reported within 30 days under state ethics law. The Nov. 17 disclosure forms note that the reports were “not filed timely due to administrative error.”

Bill McAllister, the governor’s spokesman, said this week that the mistakes were made by travel support staff. He said he could not explain the timing of when and how they were caught, but that it was irrelevant because the error was corrected.

Palin, who has criticized state lawmakers for gifts they take, is not facing any sanctions for the late filings, according to Linda Perez, state administrative director. Perez said she was alerted to the matter by McCain’s presidential campaign before the Oct. 14 AP story.

“It wasn’t necessarily the governor’s oversight, nor was she trying to hide anything,” Perez said. “It was a staff oversight.”

In one of the trips, the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute of North Carolina – a nonprofit education policy group – paid the $2,827 cost of Palin’s April 2007 flight and hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., to attend a four-day conference, according to her report. The group has said it also paid for other governors attending the annual event in recent years.

In May 2007, Palin accepted lodging for herself and her three daughters at Mt. Chilkoot Lodge in the Southeast Alaska town of Skagway. The lodging, valued at $300, was paid for by the owners, including Palin friend and former deputy campaign treasurer Kathy Hosford.

The reports were among recent disclosures released to the AP after a public records request.

Among other gifts Palin reported last month is a June 30 flight valued at $1,187.50 that was paid by the North Slope Borough for Palin and her 7-year-old daughter, Piper, to attend various functions, including a whaling festival in the town of Barrow.

Palin and husband Todd also received travel, food and lodging valued at $4,620.12 to attend a Republican Governors Association event in Gaylord, Texas, in April – gifts that were not reported until August, according to disclosure forms. Palin and the other governors attending the event also received $1,000 Rocky Carroll cowboy boots.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin implored Georgia Republicans to back Sen. Saxby Chambliss in his hotly contested Senate runoff, telling a cheering crowd Monday that the first step in rebuilding the GOP begins with the Southern state.

The former vice presidential candidate made her first campaign appearance since the Republican ticket of John McCain and Palin lost on Nov. 4. Palin’s four stops for Chambliss underscored not only the stakes for the GOP in the Senate race but Palin’s popularity within the party. She has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012 – a fact not lost on some Georgia voters.

Several thousand supporters waited in the cold to file into the James Brown Arena in Augusta. Vendors sold bright pink “Palin 2012″ T-shirts and “Palin for President: You Go Girl” buttons.

She was greeted like a rock star with chants of “Sa-rah!” “Georgia the eyes of America are upon you,” the former vice presidential candidate said. “We all have Georgia on our minds.”

Chambliss is locked in a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin after neither crossed the 50 percent threshold in the general election.

The race will help determine the balance of power in Washington where Democrats are just two votes shy of the 60 votes needed to prevent Republican filibusters. Georgia is one of two undecided contests. A recount is under way in Minnesota in the tight race between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.

And she cast the Georgia runoff as the first step in rehabilitating the Republican Party, wounded by losses in November including the defeat of the McCain-Palin ticket.

“It takes rebuilding and I say let that begin here in Georgia tomorrow,” Palin said.

She touted Chambliss’ support for gun rights as well his opposition to abortion and tax hikes.

“We must send Saxby back to the United States Senate,” she said.

Palin said she has a soft spot for Georgia where her eldest son, Track, trained at Fort Benning before deploying to Iraq.

“You took good care of my son,” Palin said.

Martin is touring the state Monday with prominent Georgia Democrats, including Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta. He’ll cap the day with a state Capitol rally with the Atlanta hip hop artist Ludacris.

Martin had asked President-elect Barack Obama to campaign with him. Obama recorded a radio ad and automated phone calls on his behalf but never made it to the state. Some 100 Obama field operatives flocked to the state to help with turnout.

Palin is just the latest political star to enter the fray in Georgia’s heated runoff contest. It has also drawn McCain and GOP rivals Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, as well as Democrats Al Gore and former President Bill Clinton.

Georgia’s last U.S. Senate runoff was in 1992. Democratic Sen. Wyche Fowler pulled more votes in the general election but lost to Republican Paul Coverdell in the runoff.

ATLANTA – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will be stumping with Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss on the eve of his Dec. 2 runoff.

Palin, who was a hit with the conservative GOP base as she ran for vice-president, will join Chambliss at four rallies across Georgia.

Chambliss is running off against Democrat Jim Martin in a race that could help determine whether Democrats have enough votes to block GOP filibusters in the U.S. Senate.

Responding to the Palin announcement, Chambliss said, “We’ve got the wind at our backs.”

Georgia is one of two unresolved contests. The other is in Minnesota, where a recount is under way in the race between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate astonishing for most Hollywood stars, let alone a first-term governor.

Oprah wants her. So do Letterman and Leno.

The failed Republican vice presidential candidate crunched state budget numbers this past week in her 17th-floor office as tumbling oil prices hit Alaska’s revenues. Her staff, meanwhile, fielded television requests seeking the 44-year-old Palin for late-night banter and Sunday morning Washington policy.

Agents from the William Morris Agency and elsewhere, have come knocking. There even has been an offer to host a TV show.

“Tomorrow, Governor Palin could do an interview with any news media on the planet,” said her spokesman, Bill McAllister.

“Tomorrow, she could probably sign any one of a dozen book deals.

She could start talking to people about a documentary or a movie on her life. That’s the level we are at here.”

“Barbara Walters called me. George Stephanopoulos called me,” McAllister said. “I’ve had multiple conversations with producers for Oprah, Letterman, Leno and ‘The Daily Show.”‘

Asked whether Winfrey was pursuing Palin for a sit-down, Michelle McIntyre, a spokeswoman for Winfrey’s Chicago-based Harpo Productions Inc., said she was “unable to confirm any future plans” for the show.

Palin may have emerged from the campaign politically wounded, with questions about her preparedness for higher office and reports of an expensive wardrobe. But she has returned to Alaska with an expanded, if unofficial, title – international celebrity.

John McCain plucked Palin out of relative obscurity in late August and put her on the national GOP ticket. Now, she has to decide how and where to spend her time, which could have implications for her political future and her bank account, with possible land mines of legal and ethical rules.

Palin is considering about 800 requests for appearances from December through 2009, with 75 percent coming from out of state. A year ago, just a sprinkle of requests came from beyond Alaska’s borders. They range from invitations to speak at The Chief Executives’ Club of Boston to attend a 5-year-old’s birthday party, from a prayer breakfast in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to a business conference in Britain.

Michael Steele, the former Maryland lieutenant governor who wants to be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, is seeking face time.

She has invitations to make appearances in 20 foreign countries, typically with all expenses paid, McAllister said. She has more than 200 requests for media interviews, again from around the globe.

“She has to pace herself,” suggested veteran Hollywood publicist Howard Bragman. “She wants a career made in a Crock-Pot, not a microwave.”

In her two months on the national stage, Palin energized the Republican base but turned off moderates and independents, according to some surveys. Flubbed answers in national television interviews raised questions about her competence. She was embarrassed by the disclosure the RNC spent at least $150,000 for designer clothing, accessories and beauty services for her and her family.

The right book or movie deal could help Palin reintroduce herself to the nation, on terms she could dictate.

While books and movie deals could be worth millions of dollars, it’s not clear if Palin would be able to legally earn it. State rules say she cannot accept outside employment for compensation.

But there appears to be little in the way of precedent left by former governors to judge if book deals or lucrative speaking appearances amount to “employment.”

Palin has sent unmistakable signals she is open to running for president in 2012, but to advance her political ambitions she must stay in the public eye in the lower 48 states. As with any celebrity, there is the risk of overexposure. At the same time, she’ll be under pressure to attend to governing her home state, which is thousands of miles from the rest of the nation.

“She has to deal with the perception that she bobbled her debut,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist John Pitney. “She needs to stay home for a while. If she wants a future in national politics, her No. 1 job is doing a good job as governor.”

Just this past week, shortly after conducting a string of national TV interviews and skipping a state education conference, she was scolded by the Anchorage Daily News. “There are … low graduation rates, plummeting North Slope oil prices, proposals to build alternative energy projects, the gas pipeline,” the paper said in an editorial. “It’s time for the governor to refocus on Alaska’s needs.”

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin, heralded by some conservatives as the future of the Republican Party, faces some cold political realities in present-day Alaska.

Within days of the McCain-Palin ticket’s defeat earlier this month, the unsuccessful GOP vice presidential nominee capped her tumultuous two months on the campaign trail with a whirlwind series of national media interviews and a headline-grabbing appearance at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Florida.

Now it’s back to her day job at the state capital in Juneau.
 
Palin’s state budget proposal is due in a month, with plummeting oil prices slashing Alaska’s revenues by billions of dollars.

The 1,700-mile natural gas pipeline she bragged about on the campaign trail – “We began a nearly $40 billion-dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence,” she said at the Republican National Convention – is nowhere near being built.

Some hard feelings linger over her administration’s initial decision to ignore subpoenas in the investigation of whether she abused her power in firing the public safety commissioner who wouldn’t oust her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper.

“The main focus is going to be on the gas line and on the long-term financial issues,” said Democratic state Sen. Bill Wielechowski. “You’re going to see really a clampdown on government services.”

Uncertain is whether the bipartisanship that existed during Palin’s 20 months as governor can survive the heated rhetoric from the presidential campaign and her own political ambitions, with the 44-year-old clearly signaling that she’s open to a bid for president in 2012.

The difficult task at hand “provides the governor with a great opportunity to roll up her sleeves and get back to her job,” said Kenneth Khachigian, a former adviser to President Ronald Reagan.
 
“She’s got four or five election cycles ahead of her where she can do things. She doesn’t have to comment on 2012 or 2016. Being a good governor is the best thing she can do right now.”

Among the challenges she faces:
      -THE BUDGET:
      Alaska has no income or sales tax, and a huge chunk of its annual revenue – as much as 90 percent – comes from taxes and fees on oil companies. When oil prices soar, as they did this summer, so do the state’s coffers: Alaska in the past two years has socked away billions in its already massive savings accounts.

But one of those accounts, the $28 billion Alaska Permanent Fund, sends every Alaskan a dividend each year – this year it was $2,069. So tapping its income to pay for government is considered political suicide, and falling oil prices can put big pressure on state spending.

The governor’s chief economist is working on a new revenue forecast, and many lawmakers expect the state to drastically reduce spending on such things as road projects.
     
-THE PIPELINE:
      With overwhelming support from Democrats, Palin awarded a license to TransCanada in August to pursue building a pipeline that would carry natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope to an existing pipeline network in Alberta.

Although the state granted TransCanada $500 million to plan the pipeline, there’s no guarantee it will be built. TransCanada says it won’t get financing for the massive project until it has guarantees from oil companies to ship the gas through the pipeline; the oil companies say they won’t give such guarantees unless Alaska sets a fixed tax rate on production of the gas, and Palin says she won’t approve the rates the oil companies want.

Solving that problem will require not only cooperation from the Legislature, but probably from the oil companies Palin has battled. And her claim to being a national leader on energy issues depends on it.

-TROOPERGATE AND THE CAMPAIGN:
      The episode – and the media spotlight that resulted from Palin’s vice presidential nomination – drew attention to practices that simply can’t be ignored.

Palin’s administration routinely used private e-mail accounts for state business, circumventing public disclosure laws. “We will undoubtedly address that in some form of legislation,” said Democratic Sen. Hollis French, who oversaw the Troopergate investigation.

Lawmakers also said they could hold hearings on, and possibly restrict, Palin’s practice of charging the state for her children’s travel and taking per diem payments for nights spent in her Wasilla home.

Democratic Rep. Les Gara has – without luck – asked the Alaska State Troopers and the Palin’s appointed attorney general to investigate whether the McCain-Palin campaign urged anyone to ignore their subpoenas. Under state law, to “induce a witness to be absent” from an official proceeding to which they’ve been summoned is second-degree witness tampering.

But even Gara, a recently outspoken critic of Palin, said he doesn’t want such matters preoccupying the government.

“There are much more important things in this state than rehashing Troopergate,” Gara said. “We all have to sit down and let bygones be bygones, but it’s going to take some conversations.”

That’s what a group in Asheville is hoping.

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In the past week, the former vice presidential candidate has invited reporters into her home in Alaska, serving them moose chili and moose hot dogs as she opens up about her life and what’s next.