American Thinker: John McCain: Palin's Political Bridge to Nowhere

American Thinker: John McCain: Palin's Political Bridge to Nowhere

As the linked article indicates, some are dismayed by Sarah Palin's decision to campaign for John McCain in the up-coming election. I disagree.

The American political scene, indeed the political scene in almost any country, is rife with temporary alliances made not for the good of a people or the nation but merely for the good, ever so temporary may it be, of the individuals in the alliance. My mother and father, God rest their souls, were adamant in teaching my siblings and me that loyalty was important and not to be worn on one's sleeve. My father, a farmer, was a lifelong Democrat in a state where the Democrats would make good Republicans almost anywhere else. He was not highly educated having had to quit high school during the Great Depression to make a living as a "dollar a day and found" cowboy yet he embodied principles that many of today's well-educated men and women cannot seem to fathom. When I was a child he served as Chairman of the School Board for the local school with no diploma himself, but with lots of common sense and principles.

My mother was a straight "A" student at Boise High School until she had to leave school. That ended her formal education but it did not end her thirst for knowledge or stop her from living by the principles that she had been taught by her parents. Indeed, the two of them worked to instill those principles in their children and encouraged us to pass them along to ours. Until I had children of my own I did not realize the challenge that presented in an era of increasing social and peer pressure to discard the old and accept new ideas and ideals as "the truth."

Sarah Palin's parents appear to have done the same thing with her. They worked to instill not the passing fads and fancies of the era but the timeless principles that have covered proper human conduct through the centuries. Truth. Honesty. Common sense. Love of family. Loyalty.

Sarah Palin is not campaigning for John McCain because it will advance her own political career. She is far more conservative than John McCain so a shared ideology is not the reason. Many on the conservative side and certainly none on the liberal-progressive-socialist side will be able to understand this. She is doing it because she knows that 3 years ago she was a politician in Alaska that was basically unknown in the rest of the United States. She is doing it because she remembers that John McCain is the one who gave her the hand-up to the national stage where, to the amazement of all, she shined. She certainly believes John McCain is a good man--she may not always agree with his position but she believes he is good--and she understands that she is indebted to him. She is doing it because of principle and that puzzles many on both sides of the aisle. Politicians are not supposed to have principles. At least, they aren't supposed to have lasting principles that go beyond the needs of the moment and here she is saying that she'll campaign for the moderate Republican from Arizona when she is the poster-child of the common-sense, conservative movement. All because of principle.

Keep that in mind when you hear others disparage Sarah Palin and her actions.

Follow the link for another view.