• On the 24th of August 1955, Michael Dale 'Mike' Huckabee was born to Dorsey Wiles Huckabee
and May Elder in the town of Hope, Arkansas, the same place where Bill Clinton was born nine years
later.

• Huckabee's father held two jobs, as a fire-fighter and car mechanic while his mother worked
as a clerk in a local gas company to support the four-member family.

• Huckabee once said about his dad, "he was one of those guys who lifted things, who worked
with his hands, and got his hands real dirty. I think he had grime and grease all over them as long
as he lived." 

• Remembering and oft quoting the tiny rental house the family lived in, Huckabee says, "I am
a generation away from abject poverty and I know it."

• Huckabee's mother, May Elder, was the oldest of seven children who had no other option but
to quit school and take care of her younger siblings while her parents toiled hard, day and night.

• Being born to a blue-collar family, Huckabee was the first male in his entire family
lineage to have graduated from high school. He often says, "My father had never finished high
school, nor his father, nor his."

• On setting a new standard in his family, Huckabee's father is said to have chuckled, "Son,
don't look too far up the family tree. There are some things there that might embarrass you."

• Though Huckabee lacked in pedigree, his humble Southern roots and pastoral credentials gave
him a better understanding of the problems of the working class in America.

• On the 11th of February 1964, Sarah Louise Palin née Heath was born in Sandpoint, Idaho to
Sarah 'Sally' Sheeran and Charles R. 'Chuck' Heath.

• Her mother was a school secretary and her father was a science teacher and track coach.

• Palin was born and baptized as a Roman Catholic but raised as a Pentecostal Christian.
Palin's family were Roman Catholics but later joined the Wasilla Assembly of God, a Pentecostal
church. During an interview, Palin is said to have described herself as a "Bible-believing
Christian".

• Palin's lineage is firmly rooted in ancestry that dates back to the 1600's in America with
an impressive pedigree laden with numerous pre-1650 immigrants from England.

• Her Mayflower ancestors include William Brewster, John Howland, Stephen Hopkins, Joan
(Hurst) Rogers, John and Elizabeth Tilley and Richard Warren. She is also the descendant of Thomas
Prence, an early governor of Plymouth Colony.

• Palin's royal lineage claims William 1, King of Scots, as an ancestor. She also descends
from Henry III of England.

• Another of her more interesting ancestors is the Rev. John Lathrop/Lothrop, a 1605
Cambridge University graduate who was ordained as an Anglican priest in England but later joined the
dissenters to head a secret congregation in London.

• Anchorage radio host Dan Fagan says, "She's a hockey mom, she lives on a lake, she ice
fishes, she snowmobiles, she hunts...she has a float plane," and in his opinion, "she's as Alaskan
as you can get".

• On the 12th of March 1947, Willard Mitt Romney was born in Detroit, Michigan to George W.
Romney and Lenore Romney. 

• He was named after his father's best friend and hotel magnate, J Willard Marriott and he
owes his middle name to his father'?s cousin Milton 'Mitt' Romney, a former Chicago Bears
quarterback.

• Romney's illustrious father is a former three-term Governor of Michigan, Chairman of
American Motors and a 1968 presidential candidate while his mother is a 1970 Michigan U.S Senatorial
candidate.

• Though he was born into a humble background, Romney's father became a wealthy national
figure by successfully hauling American Motors from the depths of bankruptcy.

• The Romneys were one of the few leading families of the Mormon faith in middle-class
America and for nearly a century, adherents to the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints
were regarded as polygamous outlaws.

• Romney's great-great-grandfather, Miles Romney, was an architect in England who sacrificed
his career to follow the steps of the Mormons, trek the Midwest and settle with his family in Utah.


• His great-grandfather was among those Mormons who fled to Mexico to start their own
community where plural marriage continued to be practiced.

• Romney's family tree is rife with polygamists on the paternal side though there is no
indication of polygamy on the maternal side of his family. According to a research by The Salt Lake
Tribune, Romney's ancestry harbors six polygamous men with forty-one wives.

• Romney, however, is a confirmed monogamist and polygamy has been absent in his family
background up to two generations.

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