By Carl Sampson
I know what you’re thinking. How did I know John McCain would pick Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate?
Well, one thing is for sure. I didn’t have any inside knowledge about the McCain campaign. In fact, I didn’t have any outside knowledge.
All I know is I’m tired of big talkers. You see, Oregon is full of them. You see them all of the time, running for one office or the other.
“We’ll do things differently,” they assure you. Then they get into office and it’s the same old, same old.
So when McCain sat down with his advisers to choose a running mate, he didn’t say, “Yep, I want more of the same. I want an old guy from the East Coast to balance my ticket.”
Instead, McCain exercised his credentials as a maverick and chose someone who brings more to the ticket than any burned-out Beltway bandit ever could.
He chose Palin, a fresh face and someone who is known for her integrity, individuality and backbone.
I’ve loved the past month, listening to all of the pundits picking at Palin because of her “lack of experience.”
To me, it all boils down to what you call experience.
I doubt any of the pundits — who all hang out together and go to the same parties to make sure they all say the same thing — have commercial fished for salmon in Alaska or hunted for caribou or ridden a snowmobile when it was 20 below and with the northern lights flashing overhead.
She has. That’s a whole different kind of experience, one that a Washington, D.C., dude in a shiny suit and squeaky shoes couldn’t know about.
Oh, and then there’s politics. Palin took on Frank Murkowski, the incumbent governor, and Ted Stevens, the most powerful member of the U.S. Senate. And the pundits didn’t tell you that they are both members of her political party.
And she took on the oil companies, slapping a hefty windfall profits tax on them. That’s something folks in D.C. have talked about but don’t have the spine to do.
And let’s talk about foreign policy. Between President Bush and his advisers and the whiz kids in Congress, I’ve never seen such a screwed up mess in my life.
I say it’s time to bring in someone from outside it give it a try.
Obviously, the guys who’ve been on duty haven’t done much of a job.
And it’s a fact that she couldn’t do worse.
Yep, there are two kinds of politicians: those with a backbone and those without one.
Palin has one. So does McCain, who has worked with members of the Democratic party to clean up campaign financing, is a war hero and is proud to be an American and salute the flag.
I can’t speak for Obama. But if he had only listened to me and picked Arnold Schwarzenegger as his running mate, he’d be in much better shape.
