09/06/08
During this Presidential election cycle, the Republican candidate I least wanted to see nominated was John McCain. McCain has many fine qualities, but he has done many things over the years that have had the opposite effect from endearing him to conservatives (like amnesty for illegal aliens for starters).
So my attention during the election has been more or less riveted on the issue of defeating Barck Obama – more so than on electing John McCain. While the thought of an Al Gore or John Kerry Presidency is a scary thought (especially Al Gore during the 9/11 crisis), frankly the thought of a Barck Obama Presidency is the scariest political prospect during my lifetime.
Obama in the White House, with a radical liberal leadership in the House and Senate, would radically transform this country into something approaching the socialist workers’ “paradise” that the mainstream media, college professors and Hollywood stars dream of. Bigger government, nationalized health care, higher taxes, illegal aliens welcomed with open arms, more government intrusion into our lives – it’s all coming if Obama gets elected.
So I’ve been more thinking and talking about preventing Obama from making it than electing McCain. Then John McCain did something brilliant. He selected Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate.
For a couple of weeks McCain floated the idea out to the conservative universe, of his selecting a running mate that was pro-abortion. Well all the comments I read and heard about this, and my own reaction, was that this was the stupidest idea he could possibly come up with. Conservatives would still vote for him, but have to hold their noses even more. Maybe he reads some of the same columns I read, like on Townhall.com, because he did the opposite. He picked someone with superb conservative credentials.
40 million people watched Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech, more than the 37 million who watched Barack Obama stand in front of those Styrofoam Greek columns.
I watched the speech myself. I saw a true conservative. I loved the way she dissected Barck Obama as a man who has written two autobiographies, but not one single piece of major legislation, either in the US Senate or Illinois Senate. She said Obama can give a whole speech about the Iraq war without one time using the word “victory.” She said she was a small town mayor, which is kind of like a “community organizer,” except you have actual responsibilities. And she made fun of those Styrofoam Greek columns. I found myself, throughout the speech, saying “Yeah!” For a conservative, it was exciting to hear someone on the national stage expressing so many of the common sense conservative principles.
You can tell that the mainstream media, who have been so much in the tank for Barck Obama that it has begun to be embarrassing, are quaking in their boots. The commentators, after the speech, had a look of terror in their eyes. And well they should, because a poll just released shows that Sarah Palin has higher approval ratings than Barck Obama, John McCain or Joe Biden. And that’s after a week of the mainstream media savaging her in ways that were so over the top it was ridiculous.
It’s going to be an interesting election.