I’ve been following Sarah Palin since she came out of nowhere to save Alaska in 2006. I’ve also been following Bobby Jindal, the other future superstar on the GOP bench. It’s an unfortunate fact that the GOP bench is not very deep right now. I would have rather not have tapped either of them for another four years, but the fact is McCain needs a running mate now.
That said, Palin is simply awesome. She has certainly accomplished more in her time as governor and mayor than Obama has in his time as senator and state senator. This is easy since Obama has accomplished nothing at all, but we needn’t rely on that, because she has accomplished quite a lot in her short time in office. First, she single-handedly cleaned up her state and saved the Alaska GOP, and had to scale mountains to do it: she came out of nowhere to defeat incumbent Frank Murkowski in the primary and former governor Tony Knowles in the general election, and then forced through ethics reforms that were opposed by her own party.
She has also fought against earmarks (again, sadly, against her own party). She was the one who killed the most famous pork-barrel project ever, the “bridge to nowhere.” Better yet (from Alaska’s perspective) she managed to hold on to the Federal money and spend it on more worthwhile projects.
She’s also been a leader on energy issues. She negotiated a pipeline with Canada (not one of the other three candidates can make any such claim) and has been fighting to open up Alaska’s north slope for oil drilling.
Beyond her CV, Palin is simply really cool. Her personal story is awesome, and she’s a terrific speaker. Her first speech with McCain yesterday was electric and I think she’ll be very effective on the stump and at the convention.
Palin’s greatest weakness is her lack of experience compared to Biden. Although one can argue that she has much more executive experience than all three other candidates combined, most people won’t see it that way, at least at first. She needs to convince people that she is prepared for the office. If she can do that, she’ll be a great running mate.
POSTSCRIPT: I confess to being overly glib above where I said that Obama has no accomplishments. Obama does have one accomplishment, the Coburn-Obama-McCain-Carper earmark reform act. Of course, he shares that accomplishment with McCain.
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