Sarah Palin's Former 1984 Beauty Pageant Rival Runs for Office in Atlanta [View All]

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Sarah Palin's Former Beauty Pageant Rival Runs for Office



http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20365088,00.html?hpt=Mid

Watch out, Sarah Palin. There's another former beauty queen who wants to swap her tiara for politics.

Maryline Blackburn, who beat Palin for the Miss Alaska title in 1984 (the former GOP vice presidential candidate was named Miss Congeniality), is expected to announce Thursday that she will be running for a seat in the House of Representatives, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

A singer and actress, Blackburn, represented Alaska as the state's first African-American contestant in the Miss America pageant but has been living in Georgia for the past 24 years and hopes to oust a Republican incumbent for his seat.

Blackburn's only in the beginning stages of her political career, but she's already familiar with Washington – and Hollywood. She reportedly performed at two inaugural balls in January 2009 at parties hosted by Ludacris and Dionne Warwick.

And while she may have shared pageant memories with Palin, Blackburn had another candidate in mind during the 2008 election: "It was all about Obama, baby," she told the New York Daily News in 2009.