Palin’s acceptance speech – my notes

Sarah Palin, the firestorm that’s taking this country by storm, spoke loudly and clearly Wednesday night, and the Democrats (and the media) don’t know what to do about it.

In the words of Mike Huckabee, the elite media has managed to do what we thought could not be done:  to unify the Republican party.  They shouldn’t have picked on this lady.

Sarah Palin herself says that same media had just one year ago had written McCain off as having failed in his effort to win the nomination.  They didn’t know John McCain – he’s a fighter.  “As as the mother of one of those troops, that’s exactly the kind of man I want as Commander in Chief.”  She’s proud of “all the fine men and women serving the country in uniform.”

And thus began the speech that defined the next Vice President of the USA:

Women who qualify as leaders

A blogger who calls himself “idot” wrote a post suggesting there were more qualified candidates McCain could have chosen instead of Sarah Palin.  Each choice he suggested has advanced degrees (usually in law) and has long histories of government service.

In rebuttal, I submitted my own list:

• After graduating college, she married, and went with her husband to work on a Kibbutz, where leadership qualities were recognized. Returning to the US, the President of the US asked her to oversee Jewish affairs, and she was a signatory to the document that founded the Nation of Israel. She came out of retirement when elected to be Israel’s Prime Minister in 1969, serving until 1974. (Gold Meir)
• After graduating from college in 1975, she took a job with Wilson Sporting Goods, but after 22 years in the workforce, she quit to take care of her family. Once her children were in high school and college she accepted a job at Sara Lee in 2004 and then the top post in February 2005, becoming the CEO of the largest corporation with a woman at the helm. “It was another case of sending in a woman to clean up a corporate mess.”
  (Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee)
• She graduated from Stanford University in 1955, with a degree in history.  A few years later she was appointed to California’s women’s parole board. After serving there, she was elected a mayor for 2 terms. After failing her bid for Governor, she was elected to the US Senate. (Diane Feinstein)
• After graduating from college, she married and followed her husband to California. She became a Democratic party volunteer and was eventually elected to Congress in a special election. (Nancy Pelosi)
• After graduating college, she became active in family issues. As a leader in the PTA, her leadership skills were recognized and she was elected to the city council (2 terms) and then beat the incumbent mayor for her third term in local government, being recognized as a leading mayor in the state. As a reformist Governor, she returned the economic surplus to the state’s citizens and quickly gained a reputation as a competent administrator and a foe of corruption (Sarah Palin)

Idiot asks what he calls “the burning question” …”If something happened to John McCain, does she have the experience, today, to be President?”  It’s clear to me that education alone isn’t the qualifying characteristic, but rather demosntrated ability to lead effectvely.  Sarah Palin meets that qualification.

Sarah Palin’s Priorities

For all the leftist mud wondering about her qualifications, why is no one quoting official sources from the Government of Alaska? Opinion pieces don’t match hard facts.

I read last January’s Alaskan State of the State speech. It says she values good government, and has cut off wasteful and needless construction spending (including the famous “Bridget to Nowhere”) and an 11-mile road that was improperly awarded.

It shows a commitment to improve education, health care, public safety and defense, energy innovation and shoring up public infrastructure, even while lowering taxes.

To meet her education goals, she set forth programs to shift the discussion from “how much will it cost?” to “what will it do?” She called for “accountability and achievement … focusing on foundational skills needed in the “real-world” workplace and in college.”

Improvements in health care outcomes include “training more healthcare providers to meet huge workforce demands,” and changing state Children’s Services programs “to better protect Alaska’s vulnerable children.” And she improved elder care.

In a state the size of Alaska, infrastructure is a huge problem. Lots of long roads, plus maintenance of energy pipelines. She’s taken steps to end cronyism to get the best value on needed improvements.

As an energy producing state, she’s had increasing revenues, but rather than simply spend them on pet projects, she returned some of that money to the citizens, and invest in renewable energy.

She improved banking rules to provide protection to Alaska’s citizens.

Rather than simply “warehousing” criminals, she instituted rehabilitation and work requirements “for the 95 percent of inmates who will re-enter society.”

And she’s taken steps to strengthen the Alaska National Guard, both as a Homeland Defense initiative and to shore up their role in the nation’s war on terror.

As one article reported, “If it seems as though Palin has spent much of her first 10 days in office dealing with leftover crises from the Murkowski administration, it’s because she has.”

She hasn’t been in office long, but she has done more in 2 years than most do in a career.

McCain – Palin: Dream Team Off and Running

McCain announced his running mate today and picked one of my favorites, Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska. (see also here)

Compared to the ObamaFest of this week, the announcement ceremony was one for the record books.

1. No press leaks until just before the event – and then enough buzz to guarantee a wide audience
2. A big announcement right after Obama’s convention – bigfooting Democratic coverage
3. A tribute by Gov Palin to the women before her – Ms ferraro and Sen Clinton – for “putting a thousand cracks in the glass ceiling, and then declaring her own goal of finally breaking that ceiling. (An obvious attempt to provide an alternative to disaffected Hillary supporters, whose candidate was never considered to be O’s VP.)
4. Started on time, ended on time, and had appropriate breaks in the middle for broadcast station ID (source: Rush Limbaugh).

Look at what she brings to the ticket:

• Young (JFK was 44 when he was elected, too), mother of 5, against abortion (kept her downs syndrome baby),
• She’s been in politics since 92, when she won the first of two terms on City Council, and then became mayor in 99, defeating the incumbent. She was also president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors. She’s been Governor of Alaska for 2 years, making a name for herself as a reformer, with three cornerstones of education, public safety, and transportation. She’s the one who killed the “Bridge to Nowhere” and has publicly challenged Ted Stevens over ethics questions.
• As Governor, she’s the head of Alaska’s National Guard, and is a member of the NRA. She has an 80% approval rating.
• Her husband Todd, a Native American (1/4 Eskimo) is an oilfield worker for BP and runs a commercial fishing company. Her husband is a member of the United Steelworkers Union and championship snowmobiler.
• She’s good looking, and is a competent speaker.

In an election where issues matter, Governor Sarah Palin is an asset.

The top VP choice for evangelicals

Who’s on the list of people mentioned for VP that would most excite Southern Baptists and other members of the conservative faith community?

According to Richard Land, that honor goes to Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Land’s endorsement is significant.  He serves as the Southern Baptist Convention public policy chief.  He speaks official Baptist thought (if there’s any commonality of Baptist beliefs).  And he’s a student of public policy and how it affects religious life.

According to Land, Palin is the best choice, “because she’s a person of strong faith. She just had her fifth child, a Downs Syndrome child. And there’s a wonderful quote that she gave about her baby, and the fact that she would never, ever consider having an abortion just because her child had Downs Syndrome. She’s strongly pro-life.”

He goes on to mention that she’s a virtual lifetime member of the National Rifle Association. She would ring so many bells. And I just think it would help with independents because she’s a woman. She’s a reform Governor. I think that, from what I hear, that would be the choice that would probably ring the most bells.

(Governor Mike Huckabee from Arkansas is the second best option, in part because he’s a Southern Baptist, with more governing experience than Palin.)

(Land’s third choice is Mitt Romney.  “There are people in the evangelical community who would have a problem with his Mormonism. I am not one of them. I mean, I’m very clear that I do not believe Mormonism is a Christian faith. But that does not disqualify someone from being President or Vice President. And my guess would be that, probably, about 15 to 20 percent of the evangelical community would have a problem with his Mormonism.”)

In the final analysis Palin is the best choice, according to Land.  She will be able to deliver independent women voters and excite both cultural conservatives and swing voters.

Countering Obama-Biden (Palin or Watts)

There’s a fanciful (fake) press release running around the net purporting that McCain should pick Romney for Secy of Treasury and Huckabee as VP. It would be nice, but ain’t gonna happen.

Also, it’s not good for the party. Who do we have that counters a “nice” black man (to use Biden’s words)? Who do we have that would draw the disaffected women’s votes? Neither Huckabee or Romney fills either condition. For all the good either could do, as second banana to McCain, it’s not a good match.

(NOTE: I like Huckabee. I still have the sticker on my car (but not much longer). I just don’t think he adds the best balance for the party or the country.)

Who would I choose? I like Sarah Palin and JC Watts.

Listen to how Wikipedia describes Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska):

“Palin was the point guard for the Wasilla High School Warriors when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship, in 1982. In 1984, she competed in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality. Palin holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. She briefly worked in the media and utility industries.

“Governor Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. Her husband, Todd, works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope and is a commercial fisherman. On September 11, 2007, the Palins’ son Track joined the Army. Age 18 at the time, he is the eldest of her five children. She also has three daughters, Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7. On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome. The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage.”

In short, she is a woman, a wife, a mother of 5, co-owner in her husband’s fishing business, and a successful Christian governor in an otherwise corrupt state government. (And she’s good looking – even in jeans and work boots.)

Maybe Palin won’t leave Alaska, where she has an 85% approval rating. Let’s turn, then, to JC Watts.

JC Watts was a college and football star quarterback (Univ of Okla and Canadian Football league), was a Baptist Youth Pastor, and served 4 terms in the US house before returning home to take care of family and run a successful business in a small city; he’s an eloquent, savvy, handsome black man with solid evangelical and conservative credentials.

In Congress, he served as Chairman of the House Republican Conference (the 4th highest ranking position). And in a 1998 interview with the NY Times, he chastised some black Democrats and civil rights leaders as “race-hustling poverty pimps”, whose careers he said depend on keeping blacks dependent on the government.

————

Either Sarah Palin or JC Watts would provide balance to McCain and appropriately counter the Obama ticket. Few others out there would do near as well.

Biden – a risky choice

Obama’s running mate has been chosen, and it weakens a weak candidate. Joe Biden was supposed to bring strengthen the ticket, but instead he threatens to only expose Obama as not ready for prime time.

Yes, Biden brings experience in the Senate, showing how little experience Obama has. Biden is well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues, and voted for the Iraq war. This highlights how little Obama knows about National Defense. All Biden offers is that he’s from the east coast, and he’s an old white guy (not a woman).

But what else does he bring? According to the AP, Biden is a native of Scranton, Pa., has working-class roots that could benefit Obama, who lost the blue-collar vote to Clinton during their competition for the presidential nomination.”

He also has his negatives. Imagine the ads reminding us of an August 2007 ABC interview where Biden said he would stand by an earlier statement that Obama was not ready to serve as president.

Then, when Biden dropped out of his own 2008 candidacy after a poor finish in the Iowa caucuses, he talked dismissively of joining someone else’s ticket.

“I am not running for vice president,” he said in a Fox interview. “I would not accept it if anyone offered it to me. The fact of the matter is I’d rather stay as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee than be vice president.”

And we will surely be reminded that he had to leave an earlier Presidential race in 1988 “when he was caught lifting lines from a speech by British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock.” In this race, he started off by describing Obama as “clean.” Is Biden NOT clean?

I’m not sure what value Biden adds to the campaign, except to make McCain looking like a real candidate.

research source: AP

Draft Mike Campaign

There are a number of Huckabee supporters mounting a number of campaigns to get him selected for Vice President.  I admire their dedication, but it’s a lot of heat for not much light.

Mike Huckabee was the great hope for evangelical conservatives, the only one really speaking the language.  Othersm like Guillani and Romney at the beginning of the campaign, were far too liberal on social issues to ever get more than a token support.  Huckabee had lived the Baptist ethos for so long it came out in everything he said.  He was unapologetically Christian (not just attending a few services when the media was around) without needing to give an altar call at the end of each speech.

Trouble is, our culture has become secular, and the news media even more so, almost anti-Christian.  So Huckabee could not get the media attention he needed – even got left off the official League of Women Voters’ Candidate Guides in Texas and Ohio!  It’s amazing he did as well as he did.

What made the campaign successful was an army of fanatical volunteers.  Needing signatures to get Huckabee on the Virginia ballot, he got over 15,000 signatures in less than 3 weeks with only one paid staffer in the state.

Now those volunteers want to pressure McCain into picking Huckabee to be Vice President.  They’re circulating a petition that quotes an article from People for the American Way, and asked me to participate.

I can’t join the list.  McCain/Huckabee isn’t likely to sway the sheep voting for Obama and just about anyone else (except Hillary).  A failure in the polls puts too much pressure to find someone else.

I’m putting my support behind JC Watts, if he’d accept. JC Watts has the credentials to counter McCain’s negatives and Obama’s positives.  Younger, eloquent, and black (two black parents), he has been a football star, a Congressman, a Baptist Youth Pastor, and is a businessman with strong family ties.  Anything Obama offers, he offers more, better.

If you want to write McCain about a VP candidate, ask him to ask Watts.  I did.

Politics of Making Nice

“In a show of Republican unity, one-time bitter foes John McCain and Mitt Romney raised money and campaigned together Thursday for a single goal — getting McCain elected president.”

So begins an article by Liz Sidoti for the Associated Press on March 27. It shows how far politicians will bend “core principles” to get elected. For Romeny’s part, he dropped out of the Presidential race after assuming he couldn’t beat McCain. But while he was in the race, there was no love lost. Romney repeatedly said McCain was outside of the GOP’s conservative mainstream, and called him a Washington insider, someone who caused the probelms now needing fixing. McCain shot back that Romney’s positions on issues seemed to come only after he decided to run for President.

Oddly, it was McCain’s charges were prophetic. He said that Romney’s flipflops “indicated a willingness to change his positions to fit his political goals.” It is that willingness that lets Romney sit next to McCain on the campaign airplane Sidoti noted “They sat next to each other and ate turkey sandwiches. They laughed and talked during the hourlong flight, and were complimentary of each other when talking to reporters traveling with McCain.”

It seems clear the reversal is a bid by Romney to become McCain’s Vice President. “Romney lauded McCain and promised to do all he can to help, saying: “He is a man who is proven and tested” and without question the right man to be president.”

Next: Veepstakes

Who will McCain find for Vice President?

This is more than just an academic exercise.  If/when he takes office, McCain will be 71.  He’s weak on core conservative issues.  He’s weak on social issues.  He’s a Washington insider.

According to Fred Barnes over at The Weekly Standard, “the list of plausible (vice-)presidents is short. Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Tom Ridge, and Joe Lieberman qualify. That’s about it. There are a number of popular Republican governors–Charlie Crist of Florida, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Haley Barbour of Mississippi.”

Former Congressman JC Watts has a different take on the issue.  But then, he’s different from the rest of  them. And not just because he’s black.

A University of Oklahoma football star quarterback and Canadian Football League pro, he represented Oklahoma in Congress from 1995 to 2002.  While in Washington, his assignments included serving as chairman of the Republican Conference of the US House.  In the 1997 Republican response to Bill Clinton’s State of the Union speech, he accused some black civil rights leaders as “race-hustling poverty pimps”, whose careers he said depend on keeping blacks dependent on the government.  He’s the only black in recent memory to not join the Congressional Black Conference.

In 2002, he chose to not run for re-election to spend more time with his family.  He is currently chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, a business consulting group.  He’s a personal friend of John McCain.  And he’s been a Southern Baptist youth director.

 So what does he say?  In his local newspaper, he wrote that “Mike Huckabee spoke to so many issues that I’ve been trying to get the GOP establishment to speak to as a black, a social conservative and an opportunity conservative.”

Watts describes the current presidential dilemma for blacks.  “Huckabee’s exit leaves the Latino and black faith communities in a real quagmire because they don’t feel like McCain and the GOP are in sync with them. While they agree with the GOP on most issues, they don’t feel embraced by the party. They disagree with the Democrats, but the Dems reach out to them. Many white evangelicals are disgusted because the establishment and consultant class of the GOP are not connecting with them. This class of voters is abandoning that form of politics, but not their core beliefs. ”

So who does that leave us as an ideal candidate for VP?  I say Watts himself.  At 51, he’s relatively young.  He’s got Obama’s good looks and rhetorical elegance.  He’s got solid conservative credentials and is an easy sell to the Evangelical block.  He serves on the boards of the Boy Scouts of America, the United States Military Academy, Africare, BNSF Railway, Clear Channel Communications, Dillard’s and Terex Corporation.

That’s my choice.