how Palin effects the landscape, I am really excited about the McCain/Palin ticket. McCain doubled down on reforming D.C. and his own political party with the pick of Palin. Palin in many ways is like Obama. Obama was asked when he first started to run for president why he didn't wait to get more experience. Obama countered that he could still remember living in an apartment in Chicago and still trying to figure out how to pay off his student loans. He felt he was close to the people and that would fad with more time in D.C. I admired that outlook even though it didn't sway me that he was qualified to be president.

In my opinion, her track record and her motivation makes Palin and excellent vice president. I wouldnt' vote for her over say Hillary for president, but I think within months of working with John McCain, she will pick up what she needs to know. She has two things working for her in international affairs:

1) She is from a state that borders Canada and basically Russia. I do not know the details of how this relationships unfolds, but I can assure you that issues of development, espcially infrastructure, has to be something where Alaskan and Canadian governments work on a daily basis with each other .

2) She is from an energy state, particularly oil and natural gas. The issue of energy is the issue around the country and world and will be for the next 50 years. Her experiences growing up in an energy state and leading that industry and her state will be very effective.

Let me give you an example. Say in the debate they are asked about Georgia and Russia. Biden will answer from his legislative experience and being on the ground in Georgia. Fair enough, I am not going to squash his abilities or knowledge. Then it would be Palin's turn. She could say something like this: "Living in a state that is 50 miles from Russia, this issue is always a concern of every Alaskan. We do not want to see a Russia on the rise because they have proven their intentions are not noble and threaten westernized democracies. This is why I support John McCain's approach to not parse words with Russia.

But at the heart of Russia's power is their large reserves of oil and natural gas. During the 90s when energy was cheaper, Russia cooperated with the world in promoting and progressing the causes of democracy. Now that both gas and oil are at record breaking prices, Russia has found new motivation to continue its imperial desires. Recently, Russia used economic warfare to threaten Europe by cutting off its natural gas pipeline. We need use our natural resources such as natural gas and oil to combat these economic threats made by people who quite frankly don't like us. Alaska is doing that with our new natural gas pipeline that I pushed through. Senator McCain wants to do that with offshore drilling."

I think, if she gets things like above, she is going to be a fantastic candidate. The big question for me is can she handle the media. The media all but claimed she was an idiot who was just picked because she was a woman. But that is what is going to happen. It happened to Hillary and it will happen to here. The media is very sexist in my opinion. Her having conservative values and coming from a state with a small population will give more fodder for them. So being an unkown, she could easily make some of the same mistake Obama has over the past year and a half with less time to clean it up. She will have a strength talking to small town America around the rustbelt, but McCain also holds a strength in that area. So, we will have to see what she can do to add to that instead of just duplication.

Still overall I think launching her into the national scene is good for the country. If they win, she will be a VP with a mission to attack pork barrelers and corruption. If not, she will probably become a Senator with no desire to grab a bridge to nowhere and stop other bridges to nowhere from being passed. I'm glad to see the new maverick on the scene.