Bold, yes. Risky, depends…
…on who’s doing the assessing. That’s the word of choice for the Democrats and much of the media. But they can’t ignore this: The choice of Sara Palin as McCain’s running mate has jazzed the conservative movement more than anything has in years.
Republicans have their own plans for solving the energy crisis, as do the Democrats. But they’ve solved an internal one swiftly, and with a big payoff.
Conservatives are thrilled with the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running-mate…Sarah Palin is a real deal conservative, down the line, on all of the issues. This has the immediate effect of energizing the base to battle to keep the White House and to close the gap in or take back the House of Representatives. It is especially important that she is ardently pro-life, and the story of her family is certain to resonate with those values voters who prize faith and family as the center of life.
Mark Steyn on a few particular points:
First, Governor Palin is not merely, as Jay describes her, “all-American”, but hyper-American…Second, it can’t be in Senator Obama’s interest for the punditocracy to spends its time arguing about whether the Republicans’ vice-presidential pick is “even more” inexperienced than the Democrats’ presidential one.
Third, he says, she’s truly post-partisan, taking on her own party’s corruption while successfully running a state and a town and a business.
Fourth, Governor Palin has what the British Labour Party politician Denis Healy likes to call a “hinterland” – a life beyond politics…Sarah Palin isn’t just on the right side of the issues intellectually…she’s lived the Second Amendment all her life. Likewise, on abortion, we’re often told it’s easy to be against it in principle but what if you were a woman facing a difficult birth or a handicapped child? Been there, done that.
Fifth, she complicates all the laziest Democrat pieties. Energy? Unlike Biden and Obama, she’s been to ANWR and, like most Alaskans, supports drilling there.
