Sarah Palin does not simply represent an opportunity to appeal to women voters and to add a new, charismatic presence to the ticket. Her selection signals the rebirth of John McCain. Palin is McCain’s kind of governor.

By putting the relatively unknown governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, on his presidential ticket, John McCain has demonstrated that rarest of all political qualities: willingness to take a real risk on a serious new venture with great potential. It’s a sign of confidence, not desperation.

Hope & Change aren’t simply empty rhetoric with Palin.

Her appointment demonstrates the flaw in the Democratic attack on John McCain, the accusation that he is another George W. Bush. By McCain choosing Palin, everyone can see the unmistakable difference between them.

Palin worked her way up the political ladder, rising on talent (she’s likable and a good speaker) and incremental achievement. She didn’t marry into power, and no one handed her anything. This is what conservatives say they want in female and minority candidates for high office. Further, she’s a reformer and a Washington outsider in a year when, as Republicans know, their own party is part of the problem. She represents real “change,” to adopt a word of the moment, and for Reaganites who have been waiting for the first post-Reagan conservative generation to rise to power, Palin represents “hope” as well.

On the Democratic side,

Palin’s counterpart Joe Biden has a hard-core liberal voting record in 36 years in the Senate, during which he has helped radicalize the judiciary. True, he knows more than Palin does about foreign policy; but much of what Biden knows is wrong -he argued, for instance, that Iraq should be partitioned. As for his sounder impulses to send more troops to Iraq and to resist the temptation to withdraw prematurely, it’s important to note that the man at the top of the Democratic ticket, Obama, disagreed with both.

Palin comes with a resume’ to back up her words. Still, no vice-presidential pick is ever perfect.

Presidential candidates perforce make tradeoffs among competing considerations of appeal to key constituencies, particular expertise, ability to muster electoral votes, and compensation for perceived weaknesses at the top. But Sarah Palin brings real reform credentials, authentic Reaganite conservatism, small-government values, and the pragmatic ethos of a middle-class mother of five. And she is a natural talent. It couldn’t get much better than that-not even if she were a man.

Palin burnishes McCain’s ‘Maverick Image’ and her selection signals a rebirth of John McCain.

Like I said, “Real Hope & Real Change.”

The Fighter Pilot And The Moose Hunter
City Journal

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