I Finally Have a Horse in the Race
Posted in politics on 06. Sep, 2008
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Sen. John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate and I’m thrilled.
You see, I’m a conservative, and here’s what that means to me. I’m for small government, small taxes, and largely a keep-your-nose-out-of my-business-type government–unless someone is getting hurt. I think government should protect the country and keep roads paved, and that’s about it. Prisons? Privatize them. The education system? Privatize it. The healthcare system? I don’t know what we should do about that. We’ve done a bit of both privatizing and government intervention and it’s still a mess. I’ll leave that debate to people who have answers.
I’m also for fiscal responsibility. Neither party has lived up to this part. This country’s deficit is outrageous. Incurring some debt is to be expected because we are fighting two wars. But politicians from both sides have seemed to have taken the in for a penny, in for a pound philosophy, thinking, “Well, the debt is huge anyway, let’s just pay for everyone’s drugs while we’re at it. And let’s add this and this and this, too.”
I can’t vote for Obama because he has already said he’s going to grow the government, promising all sorts of relief for people’s pain. But I don’t need someone in government holding my hand or commiserating with me. Government has more important things to do than that. And while I admire McCain for not necessarily toeing the party line, he is not what I’d call a conservative because he’s all for bailing out big business (Fannie May and Freddie Mack and said he’d bail out an American car maker if it filed for bankruptcy) even after they have made stupid business decisions. So I’ve been watching the political news as a reserved outsider, not able to get excited, thinking I have a choice between bad and worse, which is the same way I’ve felt for the past two elections.
McCain picking Sarah Palin was a smart move. With her, he’s trying to pick up alienated women voters who thought Hillary got a raw deal. Palin will draw in the pro-lifers and pro-gun people as she is fiercely pro-life and is a lifetime member of the NRA. After becoming governor of Alaska, she advanced plans for a 1,715 mile pipeline, so she has some definite opinions about America’s future energy ideas. And at the young age of 44, she has executive experience as a governor.
But this is what appeals to me about Palin. When she became governor of Alaska, she promised to reduce spending and increase government accountability and transparency, and her popularity rose to over 80 percent when she enacted an ethics bill that cancelled pork projects that would have benefited her fellow Republicans. She has cojones. Oh, and in addition, she’s married to her high school sweetheart and she’s the mother of five children, the oldest of whom is fighting in Iraq. In other words, she’s a decent person, and it’s sad to say that we don’t see those very often when comes to our leaders.
McCain and Obama are probably decent, too, for the most part. But I think so many politicians eventually get to the point where they run for these positions because they want to get something out of it, rather than do the right things and govern responsibly.
