[richlevy]

With so little actual info on Palin and only two months to figure her out, there is a lot of room for people to project their expectations onto her. And before anyone says anything, Obama has a voting record and over a year of campaigning behind him. The plan for Palin is to hide her as much as possible from anyone who will ask any difficult questions.

For example, it's great that she is a role model to parents with disabled children since she has been caring for her child with Downs Syndrome for the past few months. As a parent of a disabled child, I applaud this. What people don't realize is that personal experience does not translate into policy.

Bush's "compassionate conservatism" has been a disaster. While most people see this as an indictment of Bush, a lot of the GOP sees it as an indictment of compassion. McCain is promising old style conservatism. He is also promising to continue tax cuts. He is also promising to balance the budget and reduce the debt without raising taxes. There is no way to do this without major cuts in goverment spending. Right now social programs are the number one expenditure for government with military spending (defense and "War on Terror") at a higher percentage of GDP than any other major nation.

If McCain wants to make major cuts, Palin will be his hatchet woman. Noone doubts the woman is tough and self sufficient. What would be terrible is if she were used to make the case that any woman could be just like her if the government would just stop helping.

Maybe the future holds something like this:

"When my children went hungry I just went out the back door and shot a moose. I really don't see the need for food stamps." Note: This is a parody. There is no indication that Mrs. Palin said this or anything like it. I am simply making the point that 'being one of us' does not automatically mean 'being with us'. Ask the NAACP how happy they are with Clarence Thomas.

Factiod: Marie Antionette did not actually say 'Let them eat cake'.