Convention notes #3: Palin pick a brilliant stroke

By Wes Vernon

John McCain hit a home run right out of the ballpark with his pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. It has been a real shot in the arm to Republicans gathering for their convention in St. Paul this week...a convention that was somewhat low-key as all eyes were on Hurricane Gustav in the South.

Palin is — as one talkshow host put it — a "tough gal from Alaska" who hunts, eats mooseburgers, is a lifelong member of the NRA, and wants to drill not just offshore, but also in Alaska's ANWR.

The larger significance

Regardless of the ultimate outcome in November, Governor Palin will have a national platform from which to expose for all to see the utter and complete fraud of how we supposedly can't touch the oil at ANWR for fear of intruding on the caribou. In fact, some Alaskans are so angry about the federal government's barring of drilling in ANWR that they have developed an advanced enthusiasm for the caribou hunt.

Governor Palin is pro-life and opposed to same-sex marriage. She is a traditional woman who thinks out of the box. Under her governorship, Alaska has sued the federal government for listing the polar bear as an endangered species. The feds' position plays to the silly portrayal of the polar bears as victims of "global warming." Governor Palin's argument comes down to this: We are Alaskans. We actually see the polar bears up close, as opposed to those who see them only in Al Gore's distorted and carefully-edited propaganda movies. This gives the governor of Alaska a chance to shed some light on reality.

Alaska's lawsuit spotlights such "inconvenient truths" as that the polar bear population has increased from 20,000 to 25,000 in the last 40 years.

The governor argues that — while Alaska takes seriously its obligation in conservation of wildlife in its jurisdiction — listing the polar bear as "an endangered species" will deter such activities as "commercial fisheries, oil and gas exploration and development, transportation, and tourism within and off-shore of Alaska"

Governor Palin has created a department dealing specifically with "climate change," while expressing skepticism at the notion that whatever climate-change does exist is actually man-made.

The issue is region-wide

Governor Palin's entry into the national race may lead media attention to her background as something of a modern-day frontierswoman. That in turn could fuel a national discussion of a long-lasting cultural divide. I've never lived in Alaska, but I did live in the Rocky Mountain States for eighteen years, where the government owns a large chunk of the land. The people there are fiercely independent, and many of them resent the federal government restricting their access to the same economic advantages that built the original thirteen states and developed the industrialized Middle West.

Some history

That mistrust of Washington has fueled the so-called "sagebrush revolution" in the west. This is best defined as annoyance with Washington's use of its position as landlord to bar or interfere with development projects that have the potential of boosting the local economic well-being. Often the heavy hand of the feds is deployed in the name of narrowly-defined "environmentalism" supported only by junk science.

Alaska — a state for not quite 50 years — has the "sagebrush revolution" attitude in spades. Alaska is literally on the frontier. Alaskans have noted that many of the elites who lecture them from afar about "preserving the wilderness" live in well-developed concrete canyons in conditions conducive to "the good life."

Palin in Washington

When Governor Palin testified here in Washington before a committee on Capitol Hill, one liberal lawmaker pointed out to her that — well, your fellow Republican John McCain opposes drilling in ANWR, how come you're not on board with him? Why don't you get with the program here?

The governor's answer was that she agrees with McCain on most issues, but not that one, and at any rate — translating here from the governor's polite language — the inquiring liberal's supposed concern for Republican harmony was suspect, and he would do well to butt out.

Palin in Alaska

She is a very popular governor — at times topping a 90 percent approval rating. There's a reason for that. They trust her. She has rooted out corruption in her own party.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford was asked on Fox about the Obama campaign's charge that Palin is in the pocket of big oil. That allegatioin is a clear sign of desperation. And Governor Sanford said, anyone who makes it "just doesn't know Sarah." She has made ethics a major part of her administration, and in fact ran reform candidates in the primaries against Alaska Republican incumbents who have been charged with ethics violations. They don't call her Sarah Barracuda for nothing.

He doesn't have a clue

And here we have an example — to paraphrase one of Obama's lines: I'm sure that Senator Obama loves his country. It's just that Senator Obama "doesn't get it."

The Obama campaign has derided Palin as having once been the mayor of a city of only 9,000 people, and so therefore her executive experience doesn't count for anything. How petty can you get? I've lived in small towns, some of them with fewer residents than that. What's Obama got against small towns? Oh, I see — these are the people he deems "bitter" and who "cling to their guns and religion." I had forgotten. How silly of me.

Palin's executive experience exceeds that of Senators Obama, Biden, and for that matter McCain combined. Not only did Senator McCain interview her, but so did Cindy McCain, whose background as a successful CEO gives her keen insight into sizing up people. She gave the governor a thumbs up.

The Obama speech

Now let's draw a contrast between the genuine Sarah Palin and the phony speech given by Barack Obama as he wound up his splashy convention in Denver — with its showbiz atmosphere that had Broadway-Hollywood-Las Vegas and Madison Avenue all wrapped up in one.

It reminds me of a half-facetious admonition by one of my supervisors when I was in the mainstream media. His advice — cleaned up a bit here for this family website — was as follows: "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with baloney." That was the Obama convention writ large.

Item 1

Senator Obama says if John McCain wants a debate over who's best prepared to be commander-in-chief, that's a debate he's "ready to have." Why then did the Illinois senator refuse Senator McCain's invitation to twelve Townhall debates without the teleprompter to help Obama make bobby-soxers faint — and without the liberal media running interference for him with questions that spotlight only liberal issues?

Item 2

Obama chided McCain for his willingness to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, "but won't follow him to the cave where he lives."

That was too much even for liberal TV commentator Juan Williams, who said if Obama knows where Osama bin Laden lives, let's go get him now. Even for a political cheap shot, Obama's "challenge" was over the top. Bin Laden has been on the run since 9/11. There is no "cave where he lives."

Part of the problem is that our intelligence agencies were badly crippled by post-Watergate hysteria, and I don't think Senator Obama really wants to go there, considering the roles played by his party in Congress and the Carter and Clinton administrations.

Item 3

Senator Obama is offering everything free to everybody. He says he will pay every dime to cover it all, in part by eliminating every government program that "no longer works in the 21st Century." Really? Name one. He's never seen a pork-laden federal program he didn't like.

Palin, on the other hand, actually turned against members of Congress from her own party who got too comfortable with pork.

Item 4

Obama promises to create jobs for the American worker. Tell me how those materialize after we get a full-blown stock market crash, thanks to all the taxes he intends to slap on those who create jobs.

Item 5

The Illinois senator spoke out against "challenging each other's patriotism." That is code language. Nobody has challenged his patriotism, and he knows it. Many, including this column, have questioned Obama's judgment in collaborating with the terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who launched his political career.

Already, he has demanded that the Justice Department investigate a group that has dared run ads critical of him on that point.

If candidate Obama demands his opponents be investigated, just imagine what a President Obama will do when he gets his mitts on the reins of power. Who is safe if a president has a jackboot mentality?

After the danger of Gustav has passed and the convention in St. Paul has run its reduced course, these questions hopefully will be addressed in earnest.

© Wes Vernon