Election Day: A new hope???

Until the selection of Sarah Palin as Veep, I pretty much thought of the upcoming election like this:



I feared it was 1976 all over again. Obama: Jimmy Carter with ethnicity. McCain: sadly all too much like Gerald Ford. When he talked of "cap and trade" and "comprehensive immigration reform", I was reminded of "WIN buttons" and "Poland is not enslaved".

Perhaps, I rationalized, we really needed 4 years of the Obamunist, just so we can have a congress upchuck in 2010 that will make 1994 look like a mere burp, and can get a real Republican candidate in 2012. The key question for that scenario, of course, was how much damage will Barry, Harry and Nancy be able to do in 2009-2010.


But along came the Wonder Woman from Wasilla. And McCain seems to have wised up a bit too. Photoshop from Slublog:




Bill Whittle explains it better than I can, so I will just link him here.

But let me quote snippets:

Many conservatives were arguing that it would be better to sit this one out, and let the country go to hell, so that we could send the Republican party a message and re-emerge from the ashes in 2012 with “the next Reagan.” I pointed out that there were two problems with this theory:

First, you may not like the fact that Grandma smokes in bed, and you may indeed want to get her attention. But if that message consists of letting her set the bed, the house and the grandchildren on fire, perhaps there was a better way to “send a message.” Second, it pained me to point out that there was no “next Reagan.” Ronald Reagan was on the political scene for almost two decades before he became President. Who was waiting in the wings to magically fill this role? No one.

Newt Gingrich’s fire-breathing army of young reform Republicans who stormed congress in 1994 grew, in about a decade, into the party of Duke Cunningham, Trent Lott, and the Bridge to Nowhere. I watched this unfold — especially after 2004 — and time and time again, the core conservative values of discipline and responsibility were betrayed, mocked, and ignored. Restraint is not an easy sell in a society this affluent — not compared with the view of government as a bottomless bag of candy. That’s why we’re supposed to be the party of adults.

Power corrupts, and I believe there is no power more intoxicating and corrosive than the ability to spend other people’s money at will. If Newt’s Army could go so far astray, you can bet the country was disillusioned, disappointed, and furious — not just ready for change, but eager for it, even change as ethereal and diffuse as what Senator Obama has been peddling. We lost the Senate and the House in 2006 because of this. We were going to lose the presidency in 2008 for it. And we deserved to lose it.

But does one tough MILF lady Veep really matter? Yes, because:

I have personally seen hundreds of crusty, old-school paleocons who despised McCain now saying “He finally listened to us.” By picking Palin — instead of Lieberman, who we all know he wanted — he has told conservatives that he gets it. They’re not holding their noses and voting any more. They want yard signs and bumper stickers — they can’t wait to vote GOP. And the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, folks: they are writing checks.

For the first time, I think the Republicans actually deserve to WIN, more than the Demunist Commiecrats deserve to lose. It's not enough to stand against the Commiecrats; although that is necessary, that is not sufficient. Palin reassures the base and provides the reasons Republicans deserve another stay in the White House.