2012: President Palin?

We’ve all been thinking about it. With Sarah Palin as the Vice Presidential nominee and (hopefully) the Vice President of the United States in 2008, it would only be a matter of time before Governor Palin herself was on the top of the ticket.

“Palin for President 2012″ is a blog that says it is starting a movement to elect Sarah Palin the President in 2012. There’s not much on the website or blog yet but I will be closely monitoring the site. Any friend of Sarah Palin’s is a friend of ours. Sign me up!

You can find their blog here, and if you know any other websites/groups/blogs that want to elect Palin the President in 2012, leave a comment and I’ll add them to the blogroll at right on the page P4A: Palin 2012.

Governor Palin: “I will be honored to accept your nomination for Vice President”

Governor Palin’s speech tore the convention center down tonight. I’ve linked part one of her speech, from which you can find the subsequent parts. I can’t think of anything that Governor Palin left unsaid. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, the next Vice President of the United States!

Good Commentary in the Post Intelligencer

The Seattle Post Intelligencer had a good article on the Bristol Palin media craze, which you can read in full here. While I don’t necessarily agree with her characterization of the switch in liberal and conservative roles, the columnist Monica Guzman cuts through the nonsense to the real issue: that Bristol Palin doesn’t matter to this election.

You can find the link to the article above but I found the following excerpts to be valuable:

If there’s a lesson here, it’s that liberals and conservatives are defined not so much by their dogma as by their need to use their differences against each other.

The debate about Bristol Palin isn’t really about Bristol Palin. It isn’t even about teenage pregnancy. The most angry exchanges in this conversation are about political consistency.

Most relevant, I think, is her plea that Republicans and Democrats put aside their partisanship for the greater good–and to finally put to death the inane arguments about flip-flopping. “I don’t often quote dead writers. But Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote something that’s changed the way I look at politics: “A foolish consistency is the hobgobblin of little minds.”"

Amen to that, Monica. Thanks for the perspective.

Sarah Palin, Reigning Queen of the Internet

Who was the most searched-about figure on the Internet last week? Why, Governor Sarah Palin of course. In addition to being a political outsider and relatively unknown outside of Alaska, the search terms indicate that John McCain’s runningmate is more than just a candidate: she’s a phenomenon.

TIME had an article on on this, which you can find here.

Keep Sarah Palin at the head of the game: google Sarah Palin!

Sarah Palin: Right From the Start

Much has been made of Sarah Palin’s selection as John McCain’s runningmate. The big complaint about the Alaska Governor from the left is her seeming lack of experience. I’d like to investigate this charge more thoroughly.

Leaving aside the fact that Governor Palin manifestly has more executive experience than the entire Democratic ticket, and the left’s gleeful and hopeful (and ultimately tacky) insinuations that John McCain will die in office, Governor Palin is a great choice. I trust her to make the right decisions for America should she need to assume the Presidency.

As Governor, Sarah Palin has dealt with natural disasters on a large scale. Alaska, being as remote as it is, relies on the Alaska National Guard to assist with natural disaster relief, such as the flooding that took place last year and in August of this year. The people of Alaska have come to rely on disaster management organizations and the Alaska National Guard, but most of all upon Governor Palin’s effective disaster management, to overcome these challenges. Meanwhile, the only experience Senator Obama has with dealing with deadly natural disasters is appearing on the political talk shows to play the blame game. That’s not leadership experience.

Even before becoming governor, Sarah Palin has stood strong against corruption, even when that corruption was found in her own party. While chairing the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and serving as the ethics commissioner, she found corruption among several other members of the commission. After resigning in protest of the corruption, she went after them in the courts, resulting in a cleaning up of the commission. On the other hand, Barack Obama has been implicated in accepting illegal campaign contributions from non-American-citizens (despite, in one case, the check being enclosed with a note that said “I am not an American citizen”). Furthermore, Obama’s association with Tony Rezko raises questions as to his anti-corruption credentials, especially given that Obama bought property at a heavily discounted rate from Rezko before his indictment. Obama only backtracked on these matters when the media caught wise. That’s not leadership experience.

While Americans are plagued by high energy costs,  Congressional Republicans and Democrats can’t seem to find a way to relieve the pressure. Governor Palin, in her capacity as Governor of Alaska, has repeatedly stated that ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve) is ready for exploration. Senators Obama and Biden (who, like 99% of environmentalists and unlike Governor Palin, have never set foot in ANWR) oppose exploration. Governor Palin, recognizing the need to get America off foreign oil and stop depending so heavily on unfriendly regimes in an unstable region for energy, advocates an “all of the above” energy plan. That means she wants to explore domestically for oil, but also believes that other forms of energy (i.e. wind, solar, hydrodgen, etc.) should be developed. The Obama/Biden plan to secure America’s energy future is to keep our tires properly inflated. That’s not leadership experience.

Instead of engaging Governor Palin on the issues, the leftist blogosphere and the media (with a wink and a nod from the Democratic establishment) have chosen to attempt to smear the Governor and her family with cheap innuendo and scurrilous lies. This just reinforces my opinion that Governor Palin is the right choice: if the left holds such an incoherent, sputtering hatred of her that they have to attack her and her family personally, it indicates that they know they can’t win a substantive argument on the issues.

So when it comes to who to trust to take over on day one, who is America going to look to? Politics-as-usual or a proven reformer? A complainer or a leader? An energy plan so idealistic that it seems childish, or a realistic plan to get the United States off foreign oil?

There’s no contest, the choice is clear. Sarah Palin: Right from the start.

Did you know…

A few important facts about Governor Sarah Palin, courtesy of Sarah Palin Facts:

“Sarah Palin is the reason compasses point North.”

“Sarah Palin can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves!”

“Sarah Palin was not flown to Ohio in charter jet- she ran as part of morning workout.”

“Sarah Palin uses French Canadians as bait to catch giant king salmon.”

“Sarah Palin knows how old the Chinese gymnasts are.”

Check out the website (it’s also linked in the blogroll to the right). If you have a favorite Palin-oriented blog, or write a Palin-oriented blog yourself, leave a comment if you’d like to be included in the links.

Nominating a Pair of Breasts?

Why Governor Palin?

If the answer to the above question is because she’s a woman, congratulations: you’re wrong.

Sarah Palin’s sex is incidental in this case. It’s wonderful to have a woman on the Republican ticket for the first time ever, of course, but anyone who thinks John McCain will pick a Vice Presidential candidate based on the presence of a uterus doesn’t know anything about John McCain or politics in general.

Palin is smart choice (and not just because she has more executive experience than the entire Obama/Biden ticket combined). A lot has been made of her being McCain’s second choice, but all of that is irrelevant because she was his last choice and the right choice.

On the matter of experience, who else was there? Romney, who exchanged blows with McCain during the primaries? Pawlenty, who’s a good governor but is as unknown as Palin and lacks the polish and flair that Palin has? Huckabee, who also slapped McCain around pretty well during the primary? No, certainly not.

Furthermore, for those Republicans (like myself) who have watched the Bush administration descend into the scandal-ridden corpse of its former self, Sarah Palin brings her no-nonsense, non-partisan anti-corruption credentials to the ticket. Whether the pervasive feeling that the Bush administration has done a lot of illegal things is justified or not (and that’s a matter for another day), to nominate Governor Palin to be Vice President shows that John McCain is making the most out of the fact that he wasn’t hand-picked by the gOP establishment. Palin has experience going after her own party when corruption is present, and that’s the most important part of her experience.

The prevailing wisdom (if you can call the talking points of the likes of Barbara Boxer and Barack Obama wisdom) that Palin is a pair of breasts to balance the ticket is not only insulting to the Governor, but also to all women. They’re saying that women can’t do valuable things, can’t be working professionals, can’t be excellent candidates for high national office; they’re just there to look pretty. This just goes to show that NOW represents women in the same way Jesse Jackson represents blacks.

All in all, Palin is an electrifying choice. Her gender adds to her already massive appeal and ensures that, no matter who wins, the United States takes an embarrassingly overdue step forward. And even if Barack Obama wins, Governor Palin will continue her meteoric rise–assuming Obama doesn’t get the country destroyed by February 2009.