I Voted For Vice President

My three heroes are:
Helen Keller
Rosa Parks
Margaret Thatcher

Helen Keller displayed remarkable grace in her fight to survive and succeed in society.

Rosa Parks did what Dr. King suggested when he said, "There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, popular, or political; but because it is right." Something many Conservatives should start doing if they want to regain our trust.

But Margaret Thatcher is special. She was the first elected woman of a major developed country. As John O'Sullivan wrote in his book, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, Thatcher helped bring down the Soviet Union.

And she is a righteous, kick-ass babe.

Margaret Thatcher graduated from college and became a chemist. She married and had children. Then she went into politics. She lived in the real world first. And when she became Prime Minister, the machismo Argentinians thought they could pick a fight with a broad and get away with it. HA!

Despite all the gloriousness that is Madame Thatcher, she was still denigrated by the chattering classes in Britain. Even terms like "handbagging" are subtle putdowns. The Iron Lady was still just a lady, not a Prime Minister. And when they decided she "looked tired", they tossed her out.

This is the shame of politics. A woman like Thatcher who towers over the 1980s and early 1990s along with Reagan and - who else?, is still vulnerable to such nonsense.

Now, threatened by the realization that their influence is negligible at best, the Conservatives like David Frum, David Brooks, and McCain staffers are shredding Gov. Sarah Palin. The woman whose very presence on stage gave McCain even a fighting chance.

Let's face it, Obama's grotesque online donation fraud enabled his campaign to outspend McCain by an order of magnitude and yet Sarah is blamed for McCain's inability to realize he was being manipulated into a position of weakness? I loved McCain's honor but deplored the lack of fight.

David Brooks' column in that rag of a paper, The New York Times, simplistically boils conservatism down to Traditionalists and Reformists. He claims Palin is a Traditionalist. I say Gov. Palin is whoever she damn well pleases she is.

Brooks thinks the Conservative party must "reform" to be "modern" without ever seeing the oxymoron, the fallacy, the stupidity of such a statement. The very nature of conservatism is to conserve, to value tradition. We might update a little. But modernize? We just came from 8 years of "modernized" conservatism and a failed "modernized" conservative candidate. Any more modern and we'd be liberals.

NO! NO! No Thank You, Mr. Brooks.

William McGurn at the Wall Street Journal defends Sarah Palin. Part of his remarks are "In the treatment of Mrs. Palin by some of the McCain staff, there is the clear whiff of condescension. That's something a sitting American governor might understandably find hard to stomach coming from a bunch of young professional Republicans who have never themselves run for office. Ultimately, of course, this will all pass. And if Mrs. Palin goes back and continues to do a good job as governor of Alaska, these attacks will likely only reinforce her outside-the-Beltway credentials to rank-and-file Republicans."

I voted for Sarah Palin because she was the only one in the race with executive experience as well as REAL WORLD experience. She was self-made and owed NO ONE her political position.

And that's what scared the Washington Conservatives most. Sarah Palin is an Untouchable. No one has any political hold over her and she is free to do whatever she believes is right. Plus she's a chick and that scares both conservatives and liberals.

Back to basics is what is called for here. Conservatism is about seeing what worked. What tools were useful and what tools broke when handled. Conservatives build to last. The Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, these were built to last. Not change at every set back or because there's a new generation in town.

Conservatives need the breath of life (not fresh air, life) that Gov. Sarah Palin brings to our ideology. She was thrust into a Presidential race and with almost no prep, nearly saved McCain's candidacy.

Imagine what she could do for us and Conservatism in four years!