McCain’s VP

The biggest concern about GOP Sen. John McCain choosing little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee should be obvious:

The Democratic Party has energized the political process over the past year by conducting a primary campaign primarily between a woman and a younger, dynamic African-American. Next to Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. McCain faces an uphill battle to shake the "old fogey" label. Under the circumstances, it doesn't take much cynicism to imagine the Arizona senator and his advisers believing they needed a woman or minority on the ticket.

That's the politics of groups and pigeonholes, and that's unfortunate.

That said, elections are waged in the real world, and regardless of how Sen. McCain narrowed his choice to Gov. Palin, the question now is whether she is an honest and dynamic leader representing "change" from Washington's wasteful business as usual -- and secondarily whether she can attract the necessary few extra votes in half a dozen "swing" states (including Nevada) to prevail in what shapes up to be another tight presidential contest.

Gov. Palin has as many years of public service as Sen. Obama (five more, actually), so that issue is a wash -- except that the Democrats have chosen to put their relative newcomer at the top of the ticket.

But a glance at Gov. Palin's political resume and personal history should prove heartening to voters who really seek "change."

A life member of the National Rifle Association, Sarah Palin would sometimes rise at 3 a.m. to hunt moose with her father before school. She was point guard and captain of her high school's 1982 state championship basketball team and the 1984 runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, receiving a scholarship that allowed her to attend the University of Idaho.

After working as a sports reporter at an Anchorage television station, Ms. Palin served two terms on the Wasilla, Alaska, City Council from 1992 to 1996, when she challenged the incumbent mayor, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes. Winning that election, she kept her campaign promises, cutting her own salary and reducing property taxes by 60 percent. She was elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.

Appointed Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she resigned in 2004 in protest over what she called the "lack of ethics" of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistle-blowing complaints. After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican Party's chairman for doing work for the party on public time. He resigned and paid a record fine.

Sarah Palin ran a clean-up-government campaign for governor in 2006, charging ethical violations by state Republican Party leaders. She upset then-Gov. Frank Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary and then -- despite a lack of support from party leaders and a far smaller war chest than her opponent -- went on to win the general election, defeating former Gov. Tony Knowles.

Gov. Palin successfully killed the "Bridge to Nowhere" that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending. She has publicly challenged Sen. Ted Stevens to come clean in the federal investigation into his financial dealings.

Politics as usual? This is a far cry from the cozy relationship both Barack Obama and his own vice presidential choice, Joe Biden, have enjoyed with convicted Chicago political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, whose help Sen. Obama accepted in financing the young senator's million-dollar mansion in what the Democratic nominee now admits was "a mistake."

Modern Americans rarely elect big-city taxoholic Eastern liberals to the White House, as Michael Dukakis and John Kerry can testify. Instead, they generally elect "outsiders," relatively conservative governors from the West and South, as both fans and foes of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush may recall.

Sarah Palin fits that bill. She's a mother of five and wife of an oil field worker, a woman who -- married to a Yup'ik Eskimo -- lives racial equality in her own home, a woman who has challenged a corrupt political establishment at every step in her career and who believes what Americans need is not bigger, more intrusive, pork-laden government but rather to be allowed to keep more of what they earn.

Sarah Palin is not a lawyer or urban ward-heeler or career Washington insider but an articulate, independent Westerner who has been elevated by Alaskan voters in a fairy-tale succession of victories as their anti-corruption underdog, a woman who has worked on a commercial fishing boat and hunted moose in the morning.

The Palin selection was a surprise and carries an element of risk. But the Alaska governor appears to be an eminently promising and principled up-and-comer who can truly claim the mantle of "change."