The following piece was written by David Bozeman. A good friend of mine and a dyed in the wool, conservative. We are both big fans of Sarah Palin and she has inspired both of us to be more involved in the political process. So it is with great honor I display his tribute here. It can also be seen at NetRightNation.com.
Sarah Palin — A post-Election Tribute
by David Bozeman
It is now a cliche: I was going to vote for John McCain because he was the lesser of two evils, but then he picked Sarah Palin and I was jazzed.
As we know, she revved up a conservative engine stuck in idle and even McCain started to look better with her on the ticket. By election night I had come full circle and was more disappointed at her loss (should I be admitting this?).
She endured criticism from the right, of course. George Will, Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker questioned her qualifications and ability to be vice-president. Even now, members of the McCain campaign, who should be thanking her that their ticket was not wiped out in a landslide, are piling on. Her biggest fans know that she never governed strictly as a conservative — a controversial sports arena in her hometown and taxes on oil companies as governor — but then how many Republicans have?
With her stands on tax relief, smaller government, energy independence and drilling, she passes conservative muster, so her fans can focus on what makes her unique. She champions, in her day-to-day life, small town, red state Americans over intellectual elitists, often standing, unfortunately, against members of our own conservative movement.
She doesn’t just serve well as an abstract representative of this particular segment of society. She is human and she defines authenticity. She has never had to create a photo-op to show that she is a regular person — remember John Kerry applying for a hunting license! The images of the VP nominee stopping her campaign motorcade to buy diapers in a Walmart and of firing an assault weapon with the Alaskan troops in Kuwait are beyond the venom of even Peggy Noonan’s pen. Sarah Palin is genuine, her critics know it and they hate her for it. To be honest, I sort of liked the fact that she fumbled her interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric — a human contrast to the polished, political prima-donnas I thought we wanted a change from (though I was relieved to see her perform well against Joe Biden in the VP debate).
Authenticity is certainly no substitute for leadership, but her political resume speaks for itself and her stands on most issues are crystal clear. The story of her ascendency in public life reads almost like a modern-day Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but sadly, in this day and age, a conservative politician is rarely the subject of warm human parables.
Back to her persona, one moment in the 2008 campaign stands apart, a moment when authenticity and humanity merged and defined Sarah Palin. In her acceptance speech at the Republican Convention she spoke of the joy of raising her son Trig, a Down Syndrome baby and of the challenge of “making the world a more welcoming place for special needs children,” a reason many such children and their families stand in line to see her. According to some estimates, 80% of Down Syndrome babies are aborted. Her words alone, backed with her and her family’s love, deserve the praise of everyone who cares about children. Whether or not one thinks she was qualified to be vice-president, she is worth more to our public discourse than a mere punch line.
With youth, charm and a fighting spirit, a bright future in political life certainly awaits. What that will be is irrelevant here and now. She has inspired legions of hockey moms and Joe-Six-Packs to take a place in public life. As the most un-Washington of the four major candidates in 2008 (and, again, wasn’t this election about change?), she offered a small-town perspective and personified rugged self-reliance, common sense and the self-assuredness to weather harsh criticism without losing her temper or her smile.
When the history of modern conservatism is written, William F. Buckley could well be defined as its brain, Rush Limbaugh its mouthpiece and Ronald Reagan its muscle. Sarah Palin is surely its heart. I know she stole mine.
Blacknright's Weblog 
Pingback: Red, Right, & You » Blog Archive » Great Quote
Sarah gave us hope, if only for a season. I’d personally drag her kicking and screaming back in for the next time If I have to!
Within the Bible there was Esther. Sarah Palin is an American original and yet a throwback to that that was good in this nation. A woman who enjoys family, God and country. If she is not the most erudite of persons then we must consider that her moral fiber far outweighs her lack of knowledge. But she is not the educated “empty suit” we have in the White House at this time. Her leadership of Alaska is tantamount to a turnaround of the decay we see in Michigan, New Jersey, California, New York. We see moral decay in Oregon, Vermont, Massachusetts and most of New England. Our education system, one that was envied, has become a platform for the left wing, history revision, abortion rights, global warming as fact, evolution as fact, socialism as warranted. We have become an ignorant nation and we have what we voted for. A person who believes that death to the innocent is required. He believes that perversion is normal. He believes that the poor should be given what is not theirs and that they have been cheated by those who achieve.
I am a poor schlub who has worked all his life, who has given 10-15% of his income to charities and church to help the poor. I have lately been robbed of 20% of all that I earned because a socialist has destroyed the economy so that people can throw frisbies and have tattoos removed. The elitists in this country both republican and democrat have refused to believe that God ordained the Greatest Country in the World to leadd this planet. I pray that Sarah Palin, Bobby Jyndal st al are the answers to the Questions that have been raised by the BO we have in the White House.
I, for one, do not know if Sarah can ever achieve higher political office because of the biased treatment she has received from the media. For too many voters, they take the words of the media as truth and therefore doubt Sarah’s ability. If she can overcome the damage that has been done to her image thanks to a biased press, she will truly have earned whatever role she garners. If she makes a go of it some time in the future, I will certainly support her.
Media and people who believe what they say are dead wrong about her intellect…just look at the following quote from her recent engagement in Hong Kong Read it and tell me if you’ve ever heard a more concise and accurate explanation of the collapse of the real estate market and banking system last year.
“Lack of government wasn’t the problem, government policies were the problem. The marketplace didn’t fail. It became exactly as common sense would expect it to,” she said. “The government ordered the loosening of lending standards. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. The government forced lending institutions to give loans to people who as I say, couldn’t afford them. Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks. So many to be blamed on so many different levels, but the fact remains that these people were responding to a market solution created by government policies that ran contrary to common sense,” she said.
Surely no one that is dumb and uninformed can so succinctly explain this crisis.
The media continues to perpetuate the myth about her intellect because they have no other ammunition they can fire at her…soon we will reach a point of media exhaustion on Sarah Palin negative coverage..and the avg American citizen will simply tune out any further noise at that point…when the level of bias against her will become so obvious that most except the far left will take umbrage
Hi, I have been following Ms. Palins political development since she was nominated for VP. I understand that she is personable and sincere and that her political ideology is shared by many people. I can see how see represents a backlash against the old power systems in Washington, and while she has many notable attributes and has managed to gain national attention I still cannot understand why people think she is fit for the Presidency of the United States. While she can, as every American has the right to, add to the discourse of our political life, this is a far cry from taking the highest office in the land and perhaps the world. I don’t want the guy or girl next door, the ‘joe the plumber’ running the most technologically and militarily powerful nation on Earth. Seriously, would you?! I respect Mrs Palin’s right to speak her mind, but to seriously consider a person of her limited life, educational managerial and diplomatic experience for such an office is rather naive and I am sorry to say, dangerous. This is not Alaska we are talking about here! America is not an isolated island and is not the only democracy on earth. Like it or not we have to share this planet with others and it cannot and must not always go our way. I understand that people on the Right are frustrated with government, who isn’t, but you must offer to the American voter a person of real substance. Being nice, sincere and conservative is simply not enough, not in this new interconnected and complex world we find ourselves in.
Thanks for reading. I don’t completely disagree with you, and I don’t know yet who I will be supporting for president in 2012. I supported the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008 when she was running for VICE president. McCain picked someone fresh and with many years ahead of her, grooming her, if not for president, then for a strong leadership position. Yes, with McCain in his early 70s, she could have been thrust into the presidency at a moment’s notice, and advancing the argument that Obama was a weak choice for president on the other side doesn’t say much. I would just advise not to fall too much for conventional wisdom. Just because the chattering classes say Palin is not smart, does not make it so. I think what she lacks in intelligence, she makes up for in grit, determination, patriotism and the way she inspires millions. In fact, I would take someone with moderate intelligence with a positive worldview over a genius who advances socialism (and I don’t buy the conventional wisdom that Obama is a genius, either). The intellectual classes have notoriously advanced Communism, facism and other ghastly ideologies and movements. I maintain that she does not need to be president, anyway. She is influential enough as a private citizen that she doesn’t need a title to validate her impact. You may be right, but I have yet to rule her out as a candidate. Thanks again for reading and for your civility. That’s often hard to come by when the subject is Sarah!