When our future president, John McCain, selected Alaska’s governor, Sarah Palin, as his running mate, I thought it was a politically savvy move on McCain’s part to choose someone who is outside the Washington mainstream. Unlike Obama’s 35-year Washington insider pick, Joe Biden, Palin is an NRA card-carrying “soccer” mom who has a vested interest in the outcome of Iraq because her enlisted son will soon be stationed there. Then it occurred to me: That is exactly what our country needs. All the candidates—Obama, Biden, and McCain—are each part of the Washington establishment who know little about how everyday people live. I’m sure if you were to ask any of the three candidates how much a gallon of milk costs, they could not give an answer.

 

Heck, if you were to add up the years both Biden and McCain have been in Washington, you would have a collective total longer than either Obama or Palin have been alive. The difference is that Palin doesn’t seek anything other than doing the right thing for the nation whereas Obama has demonstrated that he wants to be president for the sake of the presidency. Obama has provided only rhetoric and empty promises without any means on how America will pay for his programs. Palin, on the other hand, is a believable candidate because it is clear she knows how Americans (women in particular) actually live.

 

She is a mother whose son will soon see combat in Iraq, and she is a mother whose youngest daughter has Down Syndrome, a fact that she and her husband knew long before her birth. Palin has demonstrated that she is not interested in fancy dresses and would rather wear outdoor garb as opposed to anything luxurious. She is not “Ivy league” the way the Obama’s are, and she appears not to be interested in what all of that upper class snobby stuff brings. In short, we should listen to what she has to say because she seems to understand the way in which people live.

 

Her only “vice” is that she looks like Megan Mullally from the 1990s hit television series Will and Grace. My only fear is that after a couple of months in the Washington fish bowl, Palin may just turn out like Karen Walker, Mullally’s character. This is to say that Palin might turn out to be a pill-popping alcoholic. However, I believe that Alaska’s governor is made of strong stuff and can survive anything the Democrats can dish out.