We were expecting a very rough year for the Congressional GOP, but perhaps we were being too pessimistic:

PRINCETON, NJ — A potential shift in fortunes for the Republicans in Congress is seen in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with the Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters’ “generic ballot” preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year.

Given that Democrats always poll well in the generic ballot question, this is an exceptionally stunning turn around – and it does explain why some House Democrats are starting to get the jitters and also to distance themselves from Obama and the national party.

There are a lot of things at work here – Obama’s poor performance since about mid-April; McCain’s very effective campaign; the Palin pick; backlash against the MSM/Democratic party for how they are treating Palin; a series of recent stories highlighting Democratic corruption; a sense that the Democratic majority has been entirely ineffective…will it all come together and give the GOP a new majority? Perhaps – I’m not sure; as in all things about election 2008, there are just too many uncertainties out there, and it is notoriously difficult to figure House races via polling. But one thing is certain – GOP efforts and Democratic flubs have turned what was once a near-certain Democratic wave into a down-to-the-wire battle which can go either way. The nation, dear lefties, did not actually turn left in 2006 – the people voted against the GOP, but not in favor of you…you had to close the deal and by nominating an ultra-liberal empty suit, you might just have cut yourselves off at the knees.

One of the bits of the Palin interview which is causing liberals to go bonkers:

GIBSON: I take your point about Lincoln’s words, but you went on and said, “There is a plan and it is God’s plan.”

PALIN: I believe that there is a plan for this world and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country to be able to live and be protected with inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie, and I believe that those are the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That, in my world view, is a grand — the grand plan.

GIBSON: But then are you sending your son on a task that is from God?

PALIN: I don’t know if the task is from God, Charlie. What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision he has made, what he decided to do and serving for the right reasons and serving something greater than himself and not choosing a real easy path where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer.

Never willing to sacrifice themselves for others and convinced that death is the worst thing which can happen to them, liberals and MSMers (I know, same/same) simply cannot grasp what Governor Palin is saying here. Anyone non-liberal, and especially anyone closely connected to the Jewish and Christian traditions, easily understands what is being said here – God has a plan and that plan is for the good of the world and each person in the world. We won’t – we cannot – say that God instructed the younger Palin to enlist in the Army; but we can say that if he prayed on the matter and asked God to guide him true, then his enlistment in the military will be in accordance with God’s overall plan now or at some time in the future.

Liberals see terrorists kill; they see American soldiers kill – they then do a bit of liberal thinking and come to the conclusion that there is a great deal of similarity here and as killing is wrong, both the soldier and the terrorist must be in some respects wrong…and each of them, in turn, has a claim upon our compassion. But the truth of the matter is that the most dyed-in-the-wool jihadist doesn’t want someone to set off a bomb in his home neighborhood – and thus the terrorist, as he sets his bomb in the Baghdad marketplace, knows that what he is doing is wrong…meanwhile, the Marine hunting the terrorists knows that if someone were setting a bomb in his neighborhood, he’d love and honor the man who stopped it from happening – and thus the Marine knows what he is doing is right. If the Marine shoots the terrorist at the very moment the terrorist sets off the bomb, killing the Marine, then both of them will die at the same time – but the place they’ll respectively go to will likely be very different, as the one died sacrificing himself for others (no greater love, as it were), while the other was killed in the act of unspeakable evil. On the other hand, if a Marine in battle against a regular soldier enemy kills his enemy and is killed at the same time, both men will probably find their reward, as both sacrificed the self, even though one – or even both – were fighting for a wrong cause.

God does have a plan – I can’t presume to tell you what, exactly, it is, but given that God is good, the plan must be for the good. While we can’t say that God approved of President Bush’s decision to liberate Iraq, we can be certain that liberating Iraq will work perfectly in God’s plan. And if you think about it, you can start to see it – hundreds of thousands of Americans and allies have learned how to sacrifice the self; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have learned how to govern and defend themselves; people who may have contemplated joining the terrorists have gotten a good, long look at how terrorists operate and are thus far less likely to ever join that side – and the ripples of these good things will go far beyond Iraq and effect positively many lives for many long generations. So, what Governor Palin is on about isn’t what liberals want to believe she’s on about – she’s not talking holy war, but talking about the nobility of self-sacrifice and entrusting one’s self to God.

Alien ideas to liberals, and so Gibson didn’t get it and, indeed, seemed offended by the whole concept. Really, its rather sad – and all the more sad when one thinks about it that Sarah Palin’s son (and so many thousands like him) are what stands between the Gibsons of the world and total destruction…those who believe in God and sacrifice themselves because God telles them to are held in contempt by those who disbelieve in God and who would surrender abjectly if ever placed under the slightest strain.

This is a campaign stuck on stupid:

Is the Obama campaign really this cash-strapped? We know his supposedly legendary fundraising operation is hurting. Heck, if the New York Times is willing to admit it’s hit a rough patch things must really be bad, but is it so tight that he can’t spare a few bucks worth of stickers and signs for some little girls?

Michelle Walsh is a Girl Scout leader in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. Her 2nd grade girls work hard at selling cookies and building crafts. But Walsh sometimes tries to go a step further. She wants to teach the girls about civics, specifically this Presidential race. Walsh decided a way to get the girls really excited about the campaigns would be to give them trinkets from each of the candidates. So she called John McCain’s campaign which immediately sent over a box filled with stickers and signs. Then she called the Obama campaign and it left her scratching her head.

The Chicago Tribune reports the Obama camp took Walsh’s call and then directed her to the campaign website where she could buy all the trinkets she wanted. Bumper stickers for $3 a piece. Yard signs run $8. That was a bit steep for the budget of a Girl Scout troop.

Walsh figured there must have been some mistake so she called the Obama campaign office again. She told the woman on the line about John McCain’s generosity and this time she was placed on hold. When the woman came back to the phone she apologized, but said they weren’t going to be able to help. The staffer said the Obama campaign needs every penny it can get. So she directed Walsh to another spot on Obama’s website where she could print out pages that the girls could color. Nice.

Instead, Walsh called the newspaper, which got on the phone with the Obama camp and got a much different answer. Something about a phone call from a member of the media enabled Team Obama to find a few extra bucks in the campaign chest to afford a box of goodies for the girls. Touching.

Memo to Team Obama: When the Girl Scouts call for a little free swag, you give it to them…heck, if you can work it in, you have Obama deliver it in person.

Part of the narrative of Obama was just how great his campaign has been – firing on all cylinders and he bested the unbeatable Hillary Clinton….except for a few odd pundits out there (like, well, myself) no one expected Hillary to be rejected and Obama to get the nomination (I was telling all and sundry that Hillary would not get the 2008 nomination as early as 2005, and I predicted Obama on the inside track for the Democratic nomination in September of 2007)…so the story became just what a genius the guy is. Except for the tiny, little, nitpicking facts that Obama (a) didn’t secure a first ballot majority of pledged delegates, (b) lost all the big State primaries, (c) ended the primary season with a string of humiliating losses, (d) gave in to Hillary’s demands at the convention and (e) threw all his early associates under the bus, the story of the Boy Genius is rock solid.

Obama has ridden a wave of upper class white liberal support – which showered him with money, worked the caucus States for him, made sure the media said nothing but nice things about him and which was bound and determined that, come what may, the anti-Bush be nominated. Obama was least like Bush amongst all the Democratic contenders and had been against Iraq from before Day One. It was a cinch the wealthy liberals would fall for him – and wealthy liberals can create quite a stir…but they are out of touch with mainstream America, and there really aren’t all that many of them relative to the numbers needed to actually secure 270 electoral votes.

And yet it was still Obama’s race to lose – and so far he’s now turned near-certain victory into a dog fight where he’s at a disadvantage in an otherwise still-pro-Democrat year. Credit McCain for a brilliant bit of come-from-behind campaigning and his superlative VP selection, but don’t forget that Obama never was all he was cracked up to be. Obama might still win this thing, but any thought that he’s other than a mediocre politician is entirely out the window.

Who? For those who don’t know, Intrade is the place where people put their money where their mouth is – essentially buying a stake in this or that outcome. In this case, the outcome of the Presidential election – for the longest time, Obama has been way up in this, meaning that most people who were willing to put money on it were expecting an Obama win.

Now McCain is ahead. For the first time.

I’ve always said: don’t look at what people say, look at what they do. When you match this with the prospect of House Democrats distancing themselves in public from Obama, you can start to see some handwriting on the wall…

Talk about trying to put some lipstick on a pig – Senator DeMint in the Wall Street Journal:

Let’s compare.

Mrs. Palin used her veto pen to slash more local projects than any other governor in the state’s history. She cut nearly 10% of Alaska’s budget this year, saving state residents $268 million. This included vetoing a $30,000 van for Campfire USA and $200,000 for a tennis court irrigation system. She succinctly justified these cuts by saying they were “not a state responsibility.”

Meanwhile in Washington, Mr. Obama voted for numerous wasteful earmarks last year, including: $12 million for bicycle paths, $450,000 for the International Peace Museum, $500,000 for a baseball stadium and $392,000 for a visitor’s center in Louisiana.

Mrs. Palin cut Alaska’s federal earmark requests in half last year, one of the strongest moves against earmarks by any governor. It took real leadership to buck Alaska’s decades-long earmark addiction.

Mr. Obama delivered over $100 million in earmarks to Illinois last year and has requested nearly a billion dollars in pet projects since 2005. His running mate, Joe Biden, is still indulging in earmarks, securing over $90 million worth this year.

Mrs. Palin also killed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in her own state. Yes, she once supported the project: But after witnessing the problems created by earmarks for her state and for the nation’s budget, she did what others like me have done: She changed her position and saved taxpayers millions. Even the Alaska Democratic Party credits her with killing the bridge.

When the Senate had its chance to stop the Bridge to Nowhere and transfer the money to Katrina rebuilding, Messrs. Obama and Biden voted for the $223 million earmark, siding with the old boys’ club in the Senate. And to date, they still have not publicly renounced their support for the infamous earmark.

Mrs. Palin has proven courageous by taking on big spenders in her own party. In March of this year, the Anchorage Daily News reported that, “Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is aggravated about what he sees as Gov. Sarah Palin’s antagonism toward the earmarks he uses to steer federal money to the state.”

The Porky Pig in this argument is Barack Obama and his unending addiction to using taxpayer money to buy support in his home State of Illinois – of course, its not like Obama is out of step with his party. Democrats didn’t pick up the name “tax and spend liberals” by accident, you know? It takes a real big step into the Democrats’ Alternate Universe in order to get to a place where supporters of massive, out-of-control government spending dare to condemn someone else for not being 100%-right-from-the-start against a particular bit of government spending.

If we elect McCain/Palin in November we can be certain of one thing – we’ll have two people in Washington who are not interested in advancing their careers on the back of the American taxpayer. McCain and Palin prefer to advance by hard work and showing that they have good ideas – Obama and Biden prefer to shower people with so much government swag that no one notices that its really just more of the same. What is especially refreshing in this is Palin’s veto of spending for the reason of it not being a government responsibility – this very concept is alien to Democrats, who can’t imaging anything outside of government responsibility.

There is a new wind blowing in American politics, and it comes from Arizona and Alaska, not from Illinois and Deleware.

Little noted in all the hoopla surrounding Democratic smears of Governor Palin has been the rather insane intent of Obama/Biden to prosecute members of the Bush Administration should they win the White House – as noted by the editors of NRO:

So now we have Barack Obama’s plan for bringing the nation together after the election: If he gets his hands on the Department of Justice, Obama will use that power to prosecute his political opponents…

…The Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, Joe Biden, was caught the other day assuring the party faithful that an Obama administration “will not be stopped from pursuing any criminal offence” committed by Bush administration officials. He was simply echoing the party’s standard-bearer. Back in April, Obama told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he intended to have “my Justice Department and my attorney general immediately review” any information that might be used to justify an investigation of the president or his aides. Like Biden, Obama averred that “if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated.” The Little Green Footballs blog has even turned up an Obama campaign flier about Iraq, promising to “hold accountable any perpetrators of war crimes.”

This is the lunatic left when it comes to power – this is what the Democrats invited into our political living room when they latched on to Micheal Moore and MoveOn during the 2004 campaign, and what they kept right on with when they chose Obama over Hillary. If you click on the link to the flier you will see that it does, indeed, assert that Obama will hold war criminals accountable. Now, you can think this means there will be, if necessary, a dispassionate examination of the facts and, if investigation indicates the necessity, there will be trials of all those reasonably accused of war crimes…but that is to entirely ignore the reality of the left. The left, which boosted Obama to the Democratic nomination, is already convinced that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, Condi Rice and scores of others in the Bush Administration, past and present, are guilty of war crimes – and this doesn’t even start to cover the number of US military personnel the left accuses of war crimes.

It must be kept in mind that the genesis of the current anti-war left is actually a group called ANSWER – a front group for a hardcore communist outfit which went so far, once upon a time, as to praise the Chinese communist government for carrying out the massacre in Tienamen Square in 1989. These people started to fire up the paranoid conspiracy theories about 9/11 and about post-9/11 US actions literally within days of 9/11. It started small and absurd, but it grew and grew and via groups like MoveOn, it became mainstream.

One can try to dismiss this, but if you do you’ll be ignoring where the anti-war story comes from – it comes from the same line of thought, going right back to the Korean War, which accused America of all manner of war crimes. Back during the Korean War we were accused of torturing prisoners, murdering civilians, war profiteering, using chemical weapons, waging an unjust war, occupying a nation unjustly, interfering in an internal conflict, etc, etc, etc,…so, too, were we accused during the Vietnam war and now we’re accused of this during the War on Terrorism – the lies are half a century old but this is the first time they’ve wormed their way into power inside a major American political party.

Its not that Obama and Biden are kooks – not in the sense of being creator kooks; they are receptor kooks. People who simply don’t have the knowledge and wisdom to see through a con job. Schooled in the concept that America is wrong and that the weaker side must always be the just side, Obama and Biden (as with most liberals) lack that BS detector non-liberals have. This would all be a rather funny joke save for the fact that there really might be a President Obama who will be told by some lefty appointed to the DoJ that the evidence indicates war crimes by, say, Donald Rumsfeld. Obama won’t be able to counter the argument and he’ll go forward with the criminal prosecution of people who’s only crime is that they are hated by the left.

It is because of this sort of thing that I advocate – heck, I beg – honorable Democrats to wake up, smell the coffee and jettison the left. Yes, you might have to split your party and lose an election…but you might lose, anyways, and if you lose while getting rid of the kook left, you’ll at least be able to mount a credible opposition to the conservative GOP and you will, in the by and by, obtain power again. Failure to purge the left from the Democratic party will result in one of two equally unpleasant outcomes for liberals: permanent marginalization, or civil war if the left manages to start prosecuting conservatives for being conservative. We here on the right are going to do our part – we’re going to work for McCain/Palin; what will you Democrats do? Tie yourselves forever to people who hate America, or cut them loose?

Mark Hemmingway over at NRO’s The Corner:

So let me get this straight, in one day:

* Joe Biden, intentionally or not, insinuates that Sarah Palin doesn’t care about special needs kids because of conservative objections to stem cell research (and the objections of Biden’s own religion, natch).

* Biden asks a guy in a wheel chair to stand-up in front of a large crowd of people. An honest mistake and I actually feel bad for Biden on this one, but it’s not exactly the kind of campaign tableaux you’re aiming for.

* Long time Obama associate and unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers releases a bizarre statement via cartoon saying “I don’t violent resistance is NECESSARILY the answer.”

* Barack Obama (again, intentionally or not) compares the opposing female vice-presidential candidate to a pig, at a time when she’s become a figure of public sympathy because of scores of vile, baseless attacks on Palin and her family by Obama supporters.

Now that’s a finely tuned campaign! Keep up the good work guys!

One doesn’t want to get ahead of one’s self and I won’t be the first person to assert with certainty on a blog that the wheels are coming off the cart for Obama, but this is pretty grim.

And you also start to remember that Obama lost the big State primaries and really only secured a first-ballot nominating majority by grace of superdelegates who stampeded to Obama in a typical display of the liberal herd instinct.

Perhaps Obama isn’t as great a guy as people first thought?

Ah, the troubles a person can get into when he tries to be both Catholic and liberal:

Bishop of Madison Robert C. Morlino and Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput have responded to Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden’s characterization that the point when life begins is a religious belief, criticizing him for “flawed moral reasoning,” confusing the Catholic faithful and confusing the differences between faith and natural law.

In a Sunday interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Sen. Biden had said that he is “prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception” but would not impose that belief on anyone through law. He claimed that to do so would be “inappropriate in a pluralistic society.”

Bishop Morlino made impromptu remarks in his Sunday homily, saying he had thrown away his prepared homily “for other considerations.”

Explaining that his point was not “to speak against Democrats,” but to address people who “claim to be Catholic,” he discussed Sen. Joseph Biden and Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s remarks about abortion.

“They are roughly my age… so that means that Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Biden were educated just about the same time I was,” he noted.

Stating he could not speak to the exact details of Pelosi’s Catholic education, Bishop Morlino said “I have to believe that she was taught that abortion was always wrong.”…

…Turning his remarks to Sen. Biden, Bishop Morlino said he and the senator shared as their hometown Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“I am positive of what Sen. Biden was taught in Scranton. And it’s the same thing that I was taught,” he declared.

…Sen. Biden doesn’t understand the difference between “religious faith and natural law.”

“Any human being — regardless of his faith, his religious practice or having no faith — any human being can reason to the fact that human life from conception unto natural death is sacred,” he argued. “Biology — not faith, not philosophy, not any kind of theology — Biology tells us, science [says], that at the moment of conception there exists a unique individual of the human species.”

“It’s not a matter of what I might believe. What my faith might teach me,” he said.

“Sen. Biden has an obligation to know that. And he doesn’t know it.”…

…Again insisting he wasn’t speaking about Democrats or even pro-life issues, he said his focus was upon the “awareness of faith, the catechesis that every Catholic should have.” He asked his listeners to make sure they themselves really understand what the Catholic faith teaches, through the Pope and the bishops.

“Prominent Catholics should not be violating the separation of church and state” by “teaching the wrong thing.” Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Biden, he said, are “doing precisely that.”

“If Republican candidates were doing precisely that, I would speak out with exactly the same determination,” he countered.

The Bishop’s rebuke to Biden (and Pelosi) is necessary as the program of the Democrats is to muddy the issue of Catholic teaching on life issues in order to be able to make a credible bid for Catholic votes, and most especially the votes of Catholics who regularly attend Mass, and may end up deciding the election this year. Democrats have to muddy the waters because a clear and concise statement of Democratic beliefs – ie, support for federally funded abortion on demand – would immediately be identified by devout Catholics as wrong (and you think that everyone already knows this? No, they don’t – go poll your friends and find out how many of them know that prior to the partial-birth ban an abortion could legally be performed right up to the moment of birth…quite a lot of people believe that an abortion is only legal in the first trimester…the Culture of Death is deft with its propaganda and the MSM is not about to really tell the tale of abortion). So, out go Biden and Pelosi to absurdly claim that there is dispute about what pro-life means for Catholics and that belief in life begins at conception is a theological assertion rather than a biological fact.

The Bishop is also correct that this is a massive violation of the separation of Church and State – with two elected officials high up in the United States government presuming to speak authoritatively on Catholic teaching. It is not for elected officials to proclaim Catholic dogma, but for the Bishops of the Church in union with the Bishop of Rome. Everyone should be just as outraged by this as they would be if the Pope were to, say, try to tell us what level of taxation we should impose in the United States. Of course liberals won’t get this at all because the believe that the issue of separation of Church and State is summed up in a ban on the mention of religion in the public square – but take this as a teaching moment, liberals, and understand what is really going on here.

Brought front and center into the public square by Governor Palin, this is an issue I’ve long cared about:

Concerned Women of America (CWA) of New York has launched a new international project that aims to reduce the abortion rate for babies diagnosed with Down syndrome, which reportedly stands at 90 percent. The project was developed in consultation with major Down syndrome groups in the United States.

According to a CWA of New York press release, the project makes available a free informational brochure titled “When you’ve learned that your baby may have Down syndrome … There is help and hope!”

The brochure offers reassurance to families facing a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis and informs them of resources and support groups to help them and their baby. It features the photographs of children and young adults with Down syndrome along with their family members.

“The brochure features the faces of a number of children and adults with Down syndrome,” Anne F. Downey, Esq., State Director for CWA of New York, said in a press release. “Each of the persons featured in the brochure came to me in a special way and has his or her own wonderful story to tell. In the photos you can see the joy that these young people and their family members have. Just looking at them, you can see that there truly is help and hope.”

The organization says the brochure helps OB/GYN doctors and others to provide expectant mothers with clear information, as recommended by a December 2007 bulletin from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

This issue means a lot to me because I have a close family member who is autistic – the sort of person once upon a time shoved into a lunatic asylum, and these days aborted. But a person, indeed – and someone who loves, and strives and who had hopes and dreams. The Culture of Death has tens of millions of victims, but none strike the heart as much as the “defective” children killed simply because they don’t meet an idealized conception of what a human being should be. We are tasked to rejoice in all things – and while someone may look at a Down’s Syndrome baby and wonder what there is to rejoice about, I have learned recently that there really is a joy to be found in all things, including the hardest trials of life.

The worst aspect of the Culture of Death is the way it kills joy and hope – the Culture of Death takes a baby and calls it a problem, something – according to Barack Obama – we don’t want to “punish” young girls with. A baby, however, is a joyful thing, and all life comes with great hope. Governor Palin and her husband (and, apparantly, her whole family) understand this and thus have welcomed their Down’s Syndrome child…and he’ll grow up and have the life he’ll have and when his mortal span is done, he’ll go home and live eternally in happiness. Happy child, rendered nearly incapable of the ability to sin while he lives! But not at all incapable of love! Rejoice – his inheritance will be cured at the cross, his future is assured; or so the Palin’s (and I, as it turns out) believe. Where, then, is there to turn for sadness in the child? At the fact that he’ll take some extra care and devotion from his family? Rejoice – there is a chance for all to serve, and to live out the gospel.

The point here is that negativity doesn’t really get one anywhere. To sign on to despair and death as the supposedly easier alternative is to actually take the harder road, and the road with no happiness at the end of it, and no recompense for the trials one suffers – and even in killing the unborn child, all one has done is exchanged one burden for another, without the benefit of doing the right thing and at least feeling secure in the knowledge of having done right, when it was seemingly easier to do wrong. The people of Concerned Women aren’t hoping for more Down’s Syndrome babies – but they understand that to kill the problem doesn’t solve the problem, and doesn’t help those who are doing the killing. We need a rebirth of a spirit of love, joy and sacrifice in this world – and a fine place to start will be with the most helpless among us.

From Vin Suprynowicz out here in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Wishing won’t make John McCain a small-government libertarian. But think back to how the defeatist fellow-travelers in the media ridiculed him when he said The Surge could defeat al-Qaida in Iraq.

Think back to when the genius political analysts told you McCain’s campaign was dead, that this guy was so clueless he had no remaining plan but to spend the entire autumn in New Hampshire, hanging out and gabbing with the locals at Dunkin’ Donuts.

And then last week my former senator, John McCain, threw the entire race into a maelstrom, confounding all expectations and common wisdom by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.

If Democrats believed what they say — that Gov. Palin is such a poor choice that John McCain might as well fold his tent and go home — they should be condescendingly patting the little lady on the head right now, saying, “Oh, how cute.”

So how are we to explain the way the Democratic Party is now going after Sarah Palin and her perfectly lovely pregnant daughter, for all the world like the frenzied final holdouts on some Japanese-occupied Pacific atoll, shrieking “Banzai!” as they level their bayonets and charge the machine guns in their loincloths?

…Why the desperation?

Because Vice President Sarah Palin would mean Americans could actually end up electing a woman president without tapping a manipulative, soulless, stay-married-just-to-stay-in-power socialist.

How dare the Republicans threaten to do that? Only the “progressive” party is supposed to be allowed to put the first articulate woman in line for the White House! Why, it’s just like when the Republicans dared to put a conservative black man on the Supreme Court. It’s so wrong!

Sarah Palin is a gun owner and Westerner who seems to still understand the core American notions of Freedom and the Frontier, a woman who vetoed a half billion dollars in proposed state spending and “put the government of our state back on the side of the people.”

…What this is really all about is that she is the first everyday American in a generation, the first person who is not an Ivy League attorney, not a career Washington insider, not vetted by the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations and the CIA and Ellen Goodman, a person who works her husband’s fishing boat and drives her own car to work and buys her own groceries, to be given a shot at leading this nation.

And that appears to have a certain element of the political power structure terrified.

Why do you suppose that is?

Gov. Sarah Palin can’t save America all by herself. That’s the underlying absurdity of this near-religious frenzy to pick a new Guy On A White Horse every eight years.

But an America that could elect Sarah Palin might still save itself.

That’s why.

I know what you libertarians out there are thinking – is this Vin character really a libertarian? Well, he calls the public school system a “government-funded indoctrination program”. That good enough for ya?

To bring change to Washington doesn’t mean just being someone who doesn’t live in DC, or hasn’t lived there long – the mentality of the Beltway lives in many places far, far away from the oozing sewer of DC politics. We don’t have to be concerned about whether or not DC will capture Obama – he long ago surrendered to that mindset that Other People’s Money is meant to be spent and that Government Knows Best. There has been in Obama not a single original idea; not a single deviation from leftwing ideology; not a single instance of personal courage in the face of adversity. Someone so committed to the liberal power structure is not someone we can look to for real change.

Now, to whom does McCain/Palin owe its rise? To the merit of McCain/Palin. McCain didn’t quit when everyone (including myself) figured he was a political goner – he kept right at it, never losing his cool but clearly enunciating a message which indicated that in a rough year for the GOP, he was the best person to beat the Democrat’s presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton. And so McCain rose to the top of the GOP, only to find that Hillary had already been bested, and Obama was on top…but while many looked warily at the old man McCain and contrasted him with the young, hip Obama, McCain kept right at it, noting Obama’s weaknesses, and then selecting a VP who had both excellent qualities and highlighted the deficiencies of Obama/Biden. If McCain/Palin wins the day, then we’ll have an Executive entirely free from any entangling political alliances and free to work for the people – and this may end up being especially true if, as I suspect, McCain would end up serving one term (though if this turns out to be the case, don’t look for an announcement until mid-2011).

This is not to say that McCain/Palin would create Heaven on Earth – we Christians know full well that only God can (and will) do that, and that will be in God’s good time. But if we can get a government which actually wakes up in the morning and asks itself, “is this good for the people?”, we’ll have gone a long way towards fixing the so-far intractable problems of our nation.