I’m gonna be positive.  I’d rather not wade into the muck of leftist hypocrisy (I’ll leave that to Jeff G at Protein Wisdom — warning, not a good link if you want to avoid rough language, Jeff’s a bit um, colorful)

There are a lot of cruel things being said of the Governor, (most of the horrid ones are rehashed by partisans posting on twitter using the ‘Little Know Facts’ meme ) and sometimes you get a whisp of something substantial, somethings like experience (which is something she lacks in about the same proportion as Mr. Obama), or quality of eductaion (University of Idaho isn’t an Ivy league school).

But what intrigues me, the more I read and know about Sarah Palin is what she’s done with the little bit of time she’s had in office.  She is an anti-corruption warlord on par with Xena.  She went against the former Republican governor of Alaska in the primary, then after beating her Democratic challenger in the general election, sold the tax-payer paid for luxury jet on eBay, and flies commericial*, even favoring coach.  She also pretty much ended the pork-barrel funding of Ted Steven’s ‘bridge to nowhere’, and realigned any funds to other needed infrastructure in her state.

That fact is one that effects my vote, let states make funding decisions, stop earmarks at the federal level that only invite corruption and cronyism as people send money to home districts to keep getting elected.  I would rather pay more state taxes than to have federal taxes go to pork barrel projects. Because even though the capital of Texas is Austin, a hot bed of liberals, they know better what Texas needs than anyone in Washington (even though I’m sure KBH and Conyrn are fiscally responsible).

The one thing I do like about McCain is his refusal to send home pork money to his state, and I’d absolutely love it if he sent a bundle of veto’s back to congress telling them to trim the fat.  I don’t see Obama paying close attention to that, since his political philosophy is more of a centralized economy that a free-market, states-rights type of economy.

This isn’t a single issue election, but it seems that the GOP seems poised to start charging down the path to ‘change’ with the unorthodox pick of Ms. Palin as VP candidate.  Much more leaning that direction than picking a 35 year veteran from Deleware (which by the way has the same number of electoral votes as Alaska).

So as you read the scary stories of the gun-packing, moose-hunting, basketball-shooting, salmon-fishing, child-bearing, miss congeniality, consider the source, research it a bit, and listen to what McCain and Palin say they’ll do, and reflect on what they’ve already done.

Peace.

*There is even a blog post out there that has this story and debunks the horrible ‘Sarah Palin’s son is really her daughter’s baby’ rumor, where in writing the post the author parenthetically comments on her being pregnant.  One of the wonderful thing about internet diaries is they record these details, which are easily overlooked by nefarious smear machines.