But Gibson shamelessly shilled for the Obama team. He challenged Palin several times on the change motif. In what three ways would your economic policies differ from those of the Bush Administration? When she gave a conversational response, he seemed to scold her and held up three fingers demanding that she tick them off. Just by the way, Gibson's assumption that someone promising change must necessarily be departing from Bush Administration policies is not right. A reformer might want to change Congress' refusal to permit domestic drilling, or inability to resolve the immigration problem, or desire to increase spending faster than the Bush Administration.
The Democrats and the press are not crazy for arguing that Palin's experience is a bit thin. On the other hand, the experience she has had is far more relevant for the presidency than either Obama's or Biden's. Her leadership of Alaska is the kind that makes lots of Americans stand and cheer. Before becoming governor, she had the guts to file an ethics complaint against a fellow member of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission who was also the Republican state party chairman. When he pleaded guilty and paid a $12,000 fine, she was amply vindicated. As governor, she vetoed 10 percent of the spending proposed by the legislature. And as Newsweek magazine reported (before she was picked for VP), "In Alaska, Palin is challenging the dominant, sometimes corrupting, role of oil companies in the state's political culture. For Palin, that has meant tackling the cozy relationship between the state's political elite and the energy industry that provides 85 percent of Alaska's tax revenues -- and distancing herself from fellow Republicans, including the state's senior U.S. senator, Ted Stevens Palin said it's time for Alaska to 'grow up' and end its reliance on pork-barrel spending."
Sarah Palin is not perfect -- she's just the most exciting, authentic, fresh, and talented politician to debut in a generation.