The Nigh Seen Creeder

A little over a month ago, I endorsed Bobby Jindal for Vice President. 'Bout the time that I endorsed him, Jindal let it be known that he was more interested in being the Governor of Louisiana than the Vice President of the United States. So, the Jindal for Veep effort never really got off the ground.

In my Jindal for VP post, I provided a list of nine additional individuals whom I said would be fine choices for the 2008 GOP presidential ticket. Included in that list was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. I didn't really explain why Gov. Palin - or any of my other choices, for that matter - would be a good VP candidate; but now that Gov. Palin has agreed to join the 2008 Republican ticket, I'm more than happy to explain ...

Palin is pro-life. I'm a ten-year subscriber to the Human Life Review, so I guess you pretty much know where I stand on the issue of respecting and protecting life.

Palin is pro-gun. I've written extensively about the fact that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, which the Supreme Court recently affirmed, and Gov. Palin shares that same view. She hunts and fishes, and she's a member of the NRA. I'd give anything to see her participate in a skeet-shooting contest with either B. Hussein Obama or Joe Biden. Wait ... I wouldn't want to see that. Obama or Biden, both girly men, would be more likely to shoot themselves than shoot a clay target. Indeed.

Palin knows how important it is for the United States to increase domestic oil production. Palin has long advocated putting drills in the dirt to extract the millions of barrels of oil in Alaska's federally owned lands.

Palin is a latter-day Jack Kemp. On taxes, trade, entitlements, earmarks, etc., Palin knows that the free market, when allowed to work, works. As governor, she's cut taxes, cut spending, and put the fear of God into bureaucrats (the bureaucrats she didn't fire). Compare the current economic health of free-market Alaska to union-dominated Michigan, and you'll know ... you'll just know.

All that said, B. Hussein, and Biden, and Oprah, and the left-wing hacks at MSNBC have to sweating like Michael Moore in a sauna right now, for several reasons:

First, Obama really f***ed up by not even acting like Hillary was on his list of possible Veeps. A lot of Hillary Clinton's female supporters were completely driven by the prospect that the United States might elect its first female Commander in Chief. A lot of 'em would've settled for a female VP, but Obama let 'em down in a big way when he put a boring white guy on his ticket. Don't think for a minute that Hillary's "feminist" supporters aren't thinking about Gov. Palin is a "Yes We Can" way right now.

Second, the Democrats did not see Gov. Sarah Palin coming. Give the McCain campaign credit for not allowing Palin's name to be leaked until about, oh, three hours before she appeared onstage with her running mate. All the Dems - read, the Obama campaign - could do was issue an incredibly inappropriate press release denouncing Palin as the "former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience." The last thing the Obama campaign needs to do is amp-up the debate about "experience" in this campaign. He's served four undistinguished years in the U.S. Senate (and he's spent the last two years running for President), and she has a four-year record of tax-cutting, and spending-cutting, and reforming government ... you know, executive experience.

Finally, Sarah Palin is raising a special-needs child, a child with Down syndrome. Barack Obama, as a Illinois state senator, would not support a bill protecting children who survived an abortion ... even after he heard testimony from a nurse who, for 45 minutes, cradled a Down syndrome-afflicted gift-from-God until it died. Obama is going to take a beating on the life issue -- you wait and see.

If we attempt to analogize baseball and politics, Obama hit, at best, a double with his angry speech in Denver last night. (Isn't he supposed to be the post-partisan candidate who'll bring us all together?) When McCain announced that he was picking Sarah Palin today, he hit a grand slam. He energized his base and reached out to disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters in one fell swoop.

Mark my words: When the polls come out on Monday, Obama and McCain will be tied (or McCain will have a one or two-point lead). When the Republicans leave Minnesota next week -- that is, after the voting public has witnessed a truly unified, on-message convention featuring government-reforming Senator John McCain and government-reforming Governor Sarah Palin -- McCain will have at least an eight-point lead over Obama.