A Redneck's Dream Girl

I think John McCain just clinched the election with a slightly outside-the-box pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. On a political level, you have Maverick's Mini-Me, a corruption-fighting mayor, ethics commissioner and governor, a moderate-conservative who's pro-life enough to keep the right happy but not so much so that she'll scare off soccer moms. She did veto a bill that would have banned same-sex partners benefits, something that will help win swing votes on the left but make the right uneasy.

What will make the right more easy is how Palin walked the pro-life walk by having a Downs Syndrome son in April. Many Downsers get aborted these days. They might not be comfortable with a mom of a newborn campaigning for VP, but they'll be impressed that she carried through with the pregnancy.

On a multicultural front, we're faced with the interesting prospect of the Second Gentleman being an Yup'ik. Mr. Palin, Todd, is a "Eskimo." I did just learn that Inuit isn't the universal polite form for Eskimo. Yup'iks are the natives of central Alaska and the Inuits are in the Canadian north and the Alaskan far north. The term "Eskimo" is OK in Alaska but tacky in Canada. In Alaska, since there's a mix of Yup'iks and Inuit, the Eskimo term is used to give blanket coverage, while Inuit is the preferred term to describe the northernmost "First Nations" folks in Canada, since the Canadian contingent is mostly Inuit.

Anyways, back to Sarah. She's a country boy's dream girl. Here's a couple of excerpts from her Wikipedia

Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors, in Wasilla, Alaska, when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" because of her intense play.^[4] She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds.^[4] Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.^[4]

In 1984, Palin was second-place in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, winning a scholarship to help pay her way through college.^[4] In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.

...

Details of Palin's personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose hamburger, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane.^[10][11] Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. 

You want to go after blue collar guys? You've got your gal. You want soccer moms? You've got your gal.

Yes, she's a little bit green as a leader, but she's got six years as mayor and two as governor. That's more than Joe Biden can say, or Barack Obama.

Advantage, McCain. I can see people swayed by Palin; I'm not seeing anyone swayed by Biden.