Okay, we've heard it all: her husband's twenty-year-old DUI, her daughter's pregnancy, her alleged pressuring of a commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law. But in its rush to discredit Governor Sarah Palin, the leftist press has missed the three main reasons why this was a genius pick on McCain's part.

First, Sarah Palin is from a state about as far away from the Washington elite cocktail parties as you can get. In an era of disgust with business-as-usual in the capitol, when the buzz word of the day is "change," Governor Palin brings a fresh feeling of reform to the Republican ticket. She can field dress a moose, she led her high school basketball team to a state championship as Sarah Barracuda, she stood up to the oil companies to grow the natural gas business in Alaska. She's different. She's the Wild West.

As if the NRA-hunter crowd wasn't a good enough get, Sarah Palin is a fierce pro-life Catholic. If that doesn't ring the Ohio-Pennsylvania-Michigan bell, maybe this will: Sarah's husband is a blue collar, union worker, getting his hands dirty as a commercial fisherman and an oil fielder on the north slope. And, in case you haven't noticed, Sarah is a woman. Hmmmm...sound familiar? A woman who can appeal to the Catholic union workers???? Can anyone say "Hillary"? Sarah can capture the Hillary vote that Obama has not been able to get.

A lot of people point out that Sarah doesn't have any foreign policy experience, but those people fail to understand one thing: the biggest issue as it relates to foreign policy is energy independence. If we were independent of the oil-producing Middle East, we wouldn't have to embroil ourselves in their issues. Alaska is chock full of energy resources including natural gas and oil. Sarah has been married to a man who has worked in oil for twenty years; likewise, she has served on the Alaska energy commission, and she has made two years of administrative decisions as the governor of the state.

Governor Palin's "outsider" status - a breath of fresh and different air from the West, her appeal to the working class in several swing states, and her extensive knowledge of the energy situation in the United States all point to a strong presidential pick. John McCain was right, and in November we'll all know that to be true.

September 2008