McCain's VP Pick: Just Politics or Being McCain???

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McCain Vice President: Sara Palin

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  Created by gtron003 | add comment

When I first read a few hours ago the news of John McCain's pick of Sara Palin as his choice for VP, I was a bit stunned.  Then, I was disappointed, because it struck me that John McCain had just "settled" for a political choice in his running mate -- one that his advisers said wasn't going to hurt his chances and might help.  You see, I have met John McCain, one-on-one with my good friend and longtime McCain supporter, Jim Nalepa, in his Senate office back in 2000.  I was impressed with him -- he was straight forward, direct, honest, uncompromising, and at the end of our meeting, he told me that he would try to help on the issue we discussed, which he later did.  That's rare, in my opinion, a politician that says something and then actually does it.

I have not met Sara Palin and scarcely knew anything about her.  So, it seemed that John had departed from the way I had known him in 2000 and was just doing the "political thing".  Disappointing ... but, apparently not true.

Having just finished watching the last half of Sara's speech -- and not knowing what she said in the first half, as I missed it due to my morning workout, it looks very different now.  But, as I listened, my feelings and opinion rapidly changed with each sentence she spoke.  I was quite impressed by her for several reasons.  She was articulate, genuine, gracious, straightforward and bright-eyed, as she spoke with passion and conviction about herself, the campaign and most importantly, the future of America. She is also the Governor of the one state that might be the key to "freeing" ourselves from the greedy and political clutches of foreign oil. Not to mention that she is young, not part of the Washington establishment (i.e. read that an outsider), comes from middle America and has good family values, which I imagine (hope) have been thoroughly vetted prior to being selected.  Finally, the clincher, she is Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard and has done this job well for the past two years. Then I remembered where I first heard mention of Sara -- at my 30th West Point reunion in April, one of my friends and classmates, Steve Layfield an active duty 2-star General, who commands the active US Army forces in Alaska, had told me about her and mentioned in passing that if McCain was smart, he'd consider her as a running mate. Prophetic!

Wow!  Now it was coming back more clearly.  I rethought my initial reactions to the announcement.  I was wrong!  John McCain wasn't being political, he was just being true to being John McCain in his pick of Sara Palin as his running mate for this election ... and it seems not only to be a good and genuine move on his part, but also one that, in addition to living up to his "maverick" image, is actually quite brilliant.  For all of the above reasons, plus she should be "bulletproof" to anyone who thinks about attacking her credentials as being too inexperienced to serve as VP -- she has better credentials, legislative and governing  experience as Alaska's sitting governor than the other candidate running for President of the United States.  Pretty amazing.

Oh yeah, and finally, she is a woman ( strikingly beautiful, I might add) and a mother, who graciously recognized both Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary in her speech, so that kind of bridges that gap.  My final thought?  Can't wait to watch her debate with the likes of Joe Biden -- that should be interesting ... and entertaining. In 60+ days, we'll know whether this was the right pick for John McCain, or not.