Sarah Palin's Character, Experience, and Handling of a Pregnant Teenager (Bristol Palin)

Life is an endless stream of choices. We choose what clothing to wear in the morning. We choose what to eat at mealtime. We choose the best route to drive to our destinations. We choose our behaviors based upon our moral standards. We choose who to love. We choose what to buy. And once every four years we choose who we vote for in a Presidential Election.

When we choose our candidates for political office we vote for the person we agree with most when it comes to political ideals. More often than not the person representing the political party we feel we have most in common with is not an exact match to our beliefs. Sometimes, in an effort to pull in more voters of a particular party, a presidential candidate will choose a running mate with different strengths and different appeal in order to balance the ticket.

In an effort to balance the Republican Ticket, John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

The Sarah Palin pick was no surprise to me. I indicated that whoever wins the nomination would be wise to choose Sarah Palin as their V.P. pick last year. I made this determination because I realized that the stronger candidates running for the GOP nomination were fairly moderate, and in order to balance the ticket they would need someone with executive experience, and someone proven to be more conservative than the top of the ticket. If you really think about it, Sarah Palin is the only pick that appeals to all members of the party, and would draw in the Conservative Base as needed.

A Liberal that E-mails me from France sent me the article "6 Things the Palin Pick Says About McCain." The article explains how McCain, based on his pick of Sarah Palin, is desperate, a gambler, worried about the political implications of his age, worried about his conservative base, and how the pick once again reminds people that McCain being McCain means that he is an erratic egotist.

The E-mailer made sure I understood that the Left, or at least members of the Left that agree with him, also recognizes his pick of Sarah Palin to be a desperate attempt to appeal to evangelicals who helped Bush over the top in the last election (his words, not mine).

Normally, in my opinion, the selection of a running mate has little to do with the outcome of the election. The person at the top of the ticket is who the voters concentrate on. However, in the case of McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, I believe McCain's pick has a lot of influence on the final decision many will make regarding whether or not to vote for the GOP candidate, as opposed to Barack Obama.

I don't believe that the pick of Palin shows that John McCain is desperate. After all, the "Palin for VP" fervor is well over a year old, and he knew it. Think about it. If McCain had chosen Ridge or Leiberman, the Conservative Base would have revolted. Picking Romney would have lost a large part of the Evangelical vote because of his attachment to Mormonism. Huckabee would have further alienated those who are demanding that we strengthen border security. And the list goes on. In the end, Sarah Palin was not a pick of desperation, but was really the only logical choice. Choosing Palin was very strategic, and had little to do with the fact that she is a woman. She draws in the Evangelical vote (hardly a desperate move, but definitely a needed kick), stirs the conservative base into an excited frenzy that was nothing more than angered complacency before, contrasts McCain's moderate stances, is a maverick like McCain (bucking GOP leadership often, but from the right side as opposed to McCain), has domestic experience that McCain does not have, she has executive leadership experience that none of the other three (McCain, Biden, or Obama) has, and also people can relate to her because she is not a career Washington politician who has allowed the D.C. swamp to run through her veins. She is a PTA mom that moved her way up the ladder to the eventual seat of Governor of Alaska. A success story of hard work, conservative ideals, and grass roots America.

McCain has been gaining on Obama in the polls, and the Zogby Poll and Gallup Poll actually showed McCain in the lead during the Democratic Convention (though the Gallup Poll bounced back in the other direction for Obama after the DNC Convention ended). Not only do I believe that this November will not be a landslide for Obama, but now with Sarah Palin as his running mate, Republicans are beginning to feel once again that this presidential election is winnable.

The Republican Brand is hardly a mess as is suggested by the above linked article, and as is suggested by many liberally biased commentators in the mainstream media. The Democratic Party only tries to paint it that way. The Democrats can't win on the issues, so they have villianize Bush, proclaiming that all Republicans and Conservatives are Bush-bots. People are wising up to the dirty tactic, and are beginning to remember that the Democrats didn't win the Congress in 2006 as they claim. The Republicans lost that election because Conservatives stayed home, angry at the Republicans for ignoring the Conservative Base. Palin is stirring that Conservative Base, and if the Conservatives return to the ballots in force in 2008, a McCain presidency is an inevitability. Mind you, that still remains an "if".

Palin is hardly unknown and untested. She is only unknown to the Left because the left does not take the time to look at all angles that exist beyond the edges of the blinders they wear. Palin is the most popular governor in America, with an 80% or higher approval rating during her entire term. In the first 18 months of her governorship she stamped out corruption and stopped the ridiculous flow of pork coming into the state from Alaskan Congressmen. Palin has leadership and executive experience that the other three do not have. Rather than being a Senator that simply follows the group, she has been a leader as a business owner, Mayor, and Governor. She has more experience than Obama has, and she is the second person on the ticket, not the presidential candidate like Obama.

The Republican Ticket is properly balanced. The experienced Washington politician with all of the foreign affairs experience and federal office experience is at the top of the ticket. The less experienced candidate with more domestic and executive experience is the V.P. half of the ticket, and she is poised to learn as Vice President under John McCain in a position that will teach her what she currently lacks.

The Democratic Ticket is not balanced. In fact, as is the normal tactics of the Democrats, it is exactly backwards. The leader of the ticket is a junior Senator from Illinois with less experience than Sarah Palin. He continuously makes mistakes, can't get his stories right, has no budget experience (unlike Palin), failed to produce proof of birth until after a "forgery" surfaced and he felt he "had to" produce a valid document, and has completely based his entire platform on the word "Change" as he nominated Joe Biden to be his Vice Presidential running mate - Biden is hardly "change," being a 36 year career politician in Washington.

The media immediately tried to zero in on Sarah Palin after the pick, proclaiming that her lack of experience made her a bad choice. What this choice is doing, in reality, is drawing everyone's attention to how little experience Obama truly has after all.

Palin is hardly a gamble by McCain. Picking Palin is a swift stroke of genius. This woman has credentials and abilities that the Democrats can't even fathom. And Palin being a woman has nothing to do with the pick, mind you. Her gender may not have even played a factor at all. Her positions on the issues, and strength of character, is what gained her this opportunity. She is Pro-life, a lifetime member of the NRA, a hunter, and a person conservatives feel they can relate to. She's a hockey mom, and a leader. She's tough as nails in the trenches, yet an articulate speaker on stage. She has stamped out corruption in Alaska, and has rejected the pork the Alaskan Representatives have tried to push into the state. She rejected the bridge to nowhere saying that if they needed a bridge, Alaska could build it themselves.

Democrats seem to think that Palin was chosen to appeal to the huge bloc of women, and in reality, she was chosen to appeal to the huge bloc of conservatives.

The talk about McCain's age is interesting. He is 72, not 92. He passes his health exams with flying colors. Reagan died well into his 80s. And when asked if McCain did die would I want this woman to be in charge of this nation, and be Commander in Chief, I respond with a resounding "Yes!" She has executive experience that Obama does not have. I would take her over Obama or Biden any day of the week.

As for Obama's "Change," it is hardly that. If anything, his platform is a rehash of the 1960's hysteria that celebrated drugs debauchery, and an anti-war movement engineered and run by the Marxists - and in the end they won, and a bloodbath of 2 1/2 million people in South Vietnam and Cambodia followed. These are the same folks behind the indoctrination of our children in the schools, and behind the current liberal movement that is a re-hash of the warped celebration of socialism in the 60's. The Democrats are hardly about change. And in the end, the more the Democrats try to paint themselves as the party of change, the more the Republicans prove otherwise. It was the Republicans that put a black man on the bench of the Supreme Court. It was the Republicans that made a black woman Secretary of State. And now it is the Republicans that will put a woman in the White House as the first female Vice President. But what is interesting is that the Republicans didn't do it for the same reasons the Democrats would have done such. The Republicans picked these people because of the strength of their character. Race and gender had nothing to do with it.

McCain has been a lifetime Pro-lifer, a fighter against out of control spending (the reason he opposed the tax cuts was not because he doesn't want to cut taxes, but because he felt spending should be dealt with first), a strong voice in supporting our military and the mission, and one of the last of the long line of Reagan Conservatives. Picking Palin may actually enable the voters to forget McCain's missteps, such as McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy.

The masterful pick of Palin has done something else as well. The biased media is confounded. Rather than talk about Obama, they are all talking about Palin (in essence stealing Obama's thunder after his speech of non-specifics at the Democratic Convention). And as they scramble to find dirt on Sarah Palin, they are realizing there isn't any. They tried to hit her with "Troopergate," but as they pealed away the layers of that they saw that the situation as it happened actually makes Palin look good once the facts of the situation are exposed. McCain chose a conservative, and it has the liberal left shaking in their boots. The last time a conservative like this was on the ticket we enjoyed three straight terms of Republican leadership, and the conservative stirred the party into believing in itself again. That last conservative was Ronald Reagan.

The daily KOS, and other liberal sites, have also tried to attack Sarah Palin in other ways, and none of them seemed to work. And then news came out that Sarah Palin's oldest daughter, Bristol, is pregnant (and a teenager that is unmarried at that). The Liberal Left chomped at the bit. They finally had dirt on Sarah Palin. They waited for her to stumble over he words, have trouble explaining how her dear daughter could ruin the family name doing such a horrible thing. Their hope to pin Sarah Palin down with something finally came into their grasp.

For some reason, since the Conservative Right upholds high standards and moral convictions, the Left seems to think that anyone that does anything that may be out of step should be crucified and treated as if they have the plague. Since Dick Cheney's daughter decided to be gay, Cheney (according to the Left) was supposed to disown his own daughter and burn her at the stake, or something. If he didn't stop loving his own child, they figured that made him a hypocrite. Now that Palin's daughter is pregnant outside of marriage, the Left is grinning about it too, politicizing family matters, and wondering how the Palins will deal with this horrible sin their daughter committed.

Of course the Democrat claim that moral indiscretions makes the parents hypocrites is idiotic. And to avoid being pinned down, the Left just justifies the action, or eliminates it with a swift stroke as unwanted.

Barack Obama already addressed how he'd take care of such a problem. Obama said he would not want his daughter "punished" with a baby - and murdering the unborn child with abortion would be an option.

Granted, Bristol Palin's teen pregnancy outside of marriage will do damage to the message of teaching abstinence because the Left seems to think that if teaching abstinence doesn't work 100% of the time it is proof it is a failure and the Republicans are just a bunch of hypocrites if any of their teenage girls get pregnant. What the Left didn't expect is how the Palin family, in a show of amazing strength of character, handled the situation.

In a moral society, when one does not follow moral teachings and their behavior results in unwanted circumstances, unlike the Left, it is not the Right's desire to just kill the result so that the responsibilities don't have to be met.

In step with conservative ideals and standards of personal responsibility, the Palin family is accepting the situation as an unfortunate event, but nonetheless a blessing. Any child is a blessing, and they have banded together as a family to meet this challenge. In the battle between standards of personal responsibility and the liberal stance of no standards of personal conduct, an indiscretion by Sarah Palin's daughter was met with love and unity.

Notice at no time did the Palins state that she was being "punished" with a child, or that the unborn child should lose its life because Bristol made a poor decision when it came to her personal behavioral conduct.

Sorry, liberals, it is a family matter that is being treated as a blessing - not a dirty little secret as you had hoped.

This is why the pick of Sarah Palin has conservatives excited, and liberals nervous. The media reactions, and groping for straws by the Left in an attempt to find dirt on Sarah Palin, are there for a reason. The tide has turned. McCain picking Palin has united the Republican Party in ways that the Democrats couldn't accomplish. As the protesters in St. Paul showed the world the violent side of the "Make Love Not War" mindset, and as the unpatriotic Democrats threw their American Flags in the trash, the Republicans are showing America what a balanced ticket of Patriotism is supposed to look like.

Sarah Palin was a brilliant pick.

Now the question that is arising is, will Obama's inexperience be able to survive this tidalwave of conservative support for McCain?

We'll see in November.