McCain Picks Sarah Palin as VP…

The wait is over.

For months, I’ve wondered if I could walk into the voting booth and pull the lever for John McCain.  I’ve been saying since Mitt Romney dropped out of the race that McCain had to pick a real conservative to be his Veep candidate or else I just wouldn’t vote for President at all.  In other words, John McCain had to select as his running mate something that he is not and show that he cared about winning the vote of the conservative base.

This morning, John McCain met my requirements to earn my vote with the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

I officially announce my endorsement of and my intent to vote for Senator John McCain as President of the United States of America on November 4th.

Last night, the buzz was that McCain had potentially selected Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and many outlets reported that as a fact.  When I went to bed last night, it seemed like that was the ticket and I was very close to abstaining from voting for President.  I’d show up to vote for John Sununu’s re-election, but I’d leave the President selection blank.

Sarah Palin changes all that for me.

I find it ironic that the supposed “candidate of change” in this election selected one of the biggest Washington insiders with nearly four decades in the Senate as his running mate, while the candidate who was supposedly “more of the same” has initiated this election cycle’s only real change: a woman governor from a state with only three electoral votes who has a history of fighting wasteful spending, rallying against corruption and standing up to do what’s right.

The Left is already running scared from the pick.  Half the postings I’ve read say that the Palin pick makes them uncomfortable.  The other half liken her to the worst pick in U.S. history.  That tells me they’re very worried, and probably far more than they’d let on.

They also say she’s inexperienced.  Apparently her two years as Alaska’s chief executive aren’t nearly as significant as Barack Obama’s 143 days in the United States Senate.

They say she’s got no foreign policy experience–that’s pretty funny since Pope Barack I doesn’t either and he’s running for the highest office in the land.

They say she’s the next incarnation of Dan Quayle or Sprio Agnew and that she’s only a heartbeat away from the Presidency.  They’re going to do everything they can to try and discredit and smear Gov. Palin and it’s only because their candidate for President has some serious negatives.

It’s true.  Sarah Palin would only be a “heartbeat away” from being President.  If anything should (God forbid) happen to a President John McCain, I am more than confident that a Vice President Palin would be able to step in and lead this country.  Not because of her two years of executive experience in Alaska or her ethics.  Sarah Palin would be able to lead the United States based on her character.

Barack Obama wouldn’t know anything about that.

The McCain/Palin ticket does several things immediately:

• It demonstrates to the conservative base that John McCain has not written them off and that he’s been listening to their concerns
• It shows that McCain is in this to win…and not to repeat 1996
• It sends a message to disenfranchised Hillary voters that the GOP is no stranger to “change”

Perhaps the most important thing McCain’s selection does is that it creates a bridge to the next generation of conservative leadership.  Sarah Palin (and the rest of us thirty and forty-something conservatives) are the future of the GOP and that future looks exceedingly bright.

November 4, 2008 just got a whole lot more interesting from where I sit.