Plenty of handshakes for Sarah Palin as she campaigns Sunday in O'Fallon, Mo.

Christian conservatives agree: Palin's the right choice

By Michael Metzger | Monday, Sept. 1, 2008

Before John McCain settled on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, Pastor Gus Booth of Warroad, Minn., openly fretted about the possibility that the Arizona senator might select a pro-choice vice-presidential nominee.

"I would be highly disappointed" in a pro-choice selection, Booth said a couple of days before McCain picked pro-life Palin. "It would almost be political suicide."

When McCain revealed his choice Friday, Booth and other members of the religious right rejoiced.

"It was just the most masterful VP choice in modern history," Booth said Sunday after leaving Warroad Community Church, just seven miles south of the Canadian border, on his way to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

"Amazing," he said. "I'm right in the thick of the right-wing, Republican, you know, evangelical Christian base. And everyone I've talked to is in love [with the selection of Palin]."

The sudden burst of affection for Palin, a first-term governor most voters had never heard of before last week has energized the conservative core of the GOP in a way John McCain never has. The 44-year-old first-ever female governor of Alaska, a self-described hockey mom, is enormously popular there (Rasmussen Reports says her approval rating is at 64 percent).

"About a week before [McCain] picked her, I told a few friends of mine, 'You know, he’d be smart to pick a pro-life woman.' And I was thinking of Kay Bailey Hutchinson," Booth said. "I didn’t even know this Palin girl existed. And I am blown away, super excited, by this pick."

The national surge in affection for Palin among Christian conservatives is typically credited by pundits to her support for teaching creationism in public schools, her recent decision to have a baby she and her husband knew to have Down syndrome, and a staunch pro-life stance.

The Anchorage Daily News wrote that "In 2002, when she was running for lieutenant governor, Palin sent an e-mail to the anti-abortion Alaska Right to Life Board saying she was as 'pro-life as any candidate can be' and has 'adamantly supported our cause since I first understood, as a child, the atrocity of abortion.' "

A sigh is just a sigh
Bishop Robert E. Smith of the Word of Outreach Christian Academy and Center of Little Rock, Ark., said he greeted the news of Palin's selection with a sigh of relief.

"It was just a sigh of relief that he would even think about tapping her. It was very positive," the convention delegate said.

"She's the mother of five and very, very pro-life and pro-family," he said when asked to explain his support of the relatively unknown Palin.

Pastor Ed Boston, of Hope, Ind., is in Minneapolis with his wife, Ann Boston, as a credentialed blogger of the GOP convention. He'll be in the Xcel Energy Center observing and commenting on the proceedings using his "Cyber Pastor" handle for the Do the Right Thing website.

Ed Boston isn't entirely comfortable with John McCain's reticence to regularly discuss his religious views.

"It's hard to tell where he stands because it's just not something he chooses to be open with," he said.

Boston originally supported former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, whose candidacy, highly anticipated among conservatives, was easily vanquished in early primaries.

"We don't always get our first or second or third choice in life," Boston said. "We have what we have."

Palin was also not his first, second or third choice.
"But since she has gotten the nod, I've seen an energy in the Republican Party that I've not seen in a long time — excitement — well, I'd probably say since 9-11."

He's more comfortable as a Christian with Palin than he is with McCain.

"The things with McCain we're not sure about, with Palin, we're sure about."

He cited abortion as an example.

"We're sure where she stands. She had a chance to get one when she had a kid with Down syndrome and didn't [have an abortion]."

In April, Palin gave birth to a son, Trig, diagnosed with Down syndrome, a condition detected early in the governor's pregnancy.

Dual roles
Palin's motherhood earns her high praise from Booth, but it's also the one area in which his footing becomes less sure as he traverses an argument supporting her nomination. When he's asked if he harbors any concerns about the former beauty queen contestant, Booth says he would "hesitantly" mention one.

"I mean real hesitantly — you've got to know where I’m coming from; she's amazing — but hesitantly, you know, she's the mother of some young kids. And I think we in our nation have dis-enshrined motherhood. I think motherhood is commendable, if not the greatest, or one of the greatest, assets of our human existence. Nowadays when somebody says, 'I'm a stay-at-home mom,' they’re kind of looked down upon. I think we should enshrine them and say, 'Praise God for you to take care of your kids.' So she'll have some unique challenges … not that she can't do it."

Said Booth, "She's a great pick, you know, but being a mother is an even higher calling than being a vice president."

Nevertheless, he firmly believes she's up to the difficult juggling of roles required to be both a good mother and good leader.

"It seems like she's got her head on straight and it seems like she probably would even agree with my statement that motherhood is a higher calling than vice president. They're not mutually exclusive things. They can certainly be complementary if done right."

Both Ann and Ed Boston agree Palin's capable of fulfilling both roles.

"I don't personally think she will have a problem at all," Ann Boston said. "I don’t foresee her being a stick-'em-in-daycare-all-day mom. I really see her being the hand's-on mom she's always been. Before this baby came along, she had four other babies that she dealt with while running a city and then a state. So I really think she can do this. That's what makes her even more greater."

Boston and her husband have three children; they dropped the youngest off at college a few days ago. She's thrilled to see a future with a female vice president figuring large in it.

"It's just an awesome feeling to know that we've been equalized to the highest office in the country. It has finally happened for us. I know without a doubt that we're going to win the presidency and so we're really going to have a vice president that's a female. Does that mean she'll do a better job than a male? No. It just means that somebody is representing the fairer sex that I can relate to also. I can't even really explain the excitement of that because we've never had it before."

Michael Metzger can be reached at mmetzger [at] minnpost [dot] com.

Shocking Choice by John McCain

WASHINGTON-- Senator John McCain just announced his choice for running mate: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. To follow is a statement by Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

"Senator McCain's choice for a running mate is beyond belief. By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain has clearly made a decision to continue the Bush legacy of destructive environmental policies.

"Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP, has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska's coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.

"This is Senator McCain's first significant choice in building his executive team and it's a bad one. It has to raise serious doubts in the minds of voters about John McCain's commitment to conservation, to addressing the impacts of global warming and to ensuring our country ends its dependency on oil."

###

The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund (www.defendersactionfund.org) provides a powerful voice to Americans who value our conservation heritage. Through grassroots lobbying, issue advocacy and political campaigns, the Action Fund champions those laws and lawmakers that protect wildlife and wild places while working against those that do them harm.

Palin: Surge? What Surge?

31 Aug 2008 01:21 pm

Among the tiny number of occasions on which Sarah Palin has expressed even an opinion on foreign policy, one of the most recent bears putting out there one more time. It's from a critical moment in the war in Iraq, December 2006, which John McCain has made the centerpiece of his campaign. In fact, his support for a double-down strategy in Iraq in the winter of 2006 and early 2007 is one central argument he has made for his candidacy. He has now chosen as the person who would replace him instantly if, at any time bgetween the ages of 72 and 76, he might be incapacitated or die, a person whose view of the situation was as follows:

Alaska Business Monthly: We've lost a lot of Alaska's military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?

Palin: I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe. Every life lost is such a tragedy. I am very, very proud of the troops we have in Alaska, those fighting overseas for our freedoms, and the families here who are making so many sacrifices.

As far as I can tell, her response to this central issue of national security was three-fold: I don't know enough to have an opinion apart from what I hear on the news, I agree with the Democratic party's focus on the welfare and safety of the troops, I'm a loyal Republican and patriot, and

I want to know that we have an exit plan in place.

Wasn't the whole point of the surge to kill off any notions in Iraq that we were going to withdraw and to ramp up counter-insurgency and troop levels indefinitely until the place was secure, and democratic?

The whole point was that there was no exit plan for 2007 or beyond, and McCain opposed such an exit plan. The point, according to McCain, was "victory." So McCain has picked a woman who, in so far as she had any views at all, actually echoed Democratic party talking points, not McCain's.

Do you think he even asked her about foreign policy? Me neither. This pick has told us very little about Sarah Palin, except that she seems like a promising young governor focused almost entirely - and understandably - on the demands of her idiosyncratic state. But it has told us a huge amount about McCain.

As in: way too risky for the White House right now.