Reactionary beat me to the punch with a post on John McCain’s pick for VP: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  Last night I contemplated writing a post speculating about who I thought McCain would pick and who I wished he would pick.  Palin was at the top of my wish list, but I presumed he would go with Romney or Pawlenty.  Both would have been relatively safe, although uninspiring choices.  I also feared he might go with Lieberman under the assumption that conservatives would pick him over Obama regardless and he might pull over enough Dems to win.  Ends justify the means logic.  Basically I assumed Palin had no chance.

When I walked past the TV today at work and saw the announcement I was ecstatic.  It was an absolutely brilliant choice and Palin delivered big time with her speech.  Certainly much hype will be made over her being the first GOP female VP ballot and first female VP from either party with a legitimate shot at winning (I’m sorry, but Ferraro’s 13 electoral vote tally is quite poor).  And rightfully so.  But Palin is a strong choice not because of her gender, but because of who she is, what she stands for, and what she has done.  Lifetime NRA member.  Stood up to corruption in her own party in Alaska.  Opposed the “Bridge to Nowhere” - the most glaring symbol of earmarking run amok.  Mother of five, including a son about to deploy to Iraq.  Eats mooseburger.  Did I mention that she is quite fetching as well?

For the first time I became excited about voting for McCain - and I don’t often get excited about voting for anyone.  Up until that point I was simply comfortable with the idea of voting for McCain.  I called my wife later in the day and she asked if I had heard the news.  She proceeded to tell me that she watched Palin’s speech and liked her so much that was herself excited to vote for McCain.  That means something because my wife was even less enthusiastic about McCain than I was.  I wonder how many other women also got (or will become) excited about voting for McCain because of Palin.

I’ve really enjoyed watching the left, including MSNBC, fumble about trying to tear down Palin.  There are two talking points: she is inexperienced (that is incredibly rich) and she is under investigation by Alaska Democrats.

The experience argument is laughable.  First of all Palin is not at the top of the ticket.  It takes some kind of nerve for a party who put Barack Obama at the top of their ticket to offer any criticism of the experience of the opposing party’s VP choice.  What is really amusing is that Palin still has more executive experience than the entire Democrat ticket.

The “scandal” is such a yawner that I can scarcely believe the Dems are making a fuss over it.  Basically the story is that individuals in Palin’s administration pressured the public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper who happened to be Palin’s former brother in law.  The commissioner didn’t, so he was fired along with the state trooper.  An investigation of the trooper revealed that he used a Taser on his stepson, illegally shot a moose, and drank beer in his patrol car.  He also allegedly made threats against Palin’s family.  So this is the Democrat’s poster child for Palin’s lack of ethics.  How quaint.  By the way, Palin ordered the investigation into the dismissals herself and has cooperated fully.  It is quite ironic to see the party whose presidential nominee is friendly with a terrorist try to make hay out of the other party’s VP candidate possibly “abusing her position” by firing a law breaking officer who drank beer in his patrol car.

Long story short, choosing Palin as his running mate was a fantastic decision by John McCain.  VP choices don’t usually mean that much.  When Obama announced Biden as his second fiddle his supporters dolefully talked about his foreign policy credentials.  But McCain has brought excitement to his campaign with his choice.  This decision might just get him into the Oval Office.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 10:24 pm and is filed under John McCain, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.