I was overjoyed with John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for vice-president. She has spent her entire political career taking down what she herself has dubbed “good old boys.” It was within that struggle that Palin’s personality found its definition, and it is exactly why she is the best candidate that either party has put forward in decades.

Anyone who has been very involved in politics knows immediately what “good old boys” describes; it refers to men who, by virtue of gray hair and accumulated wealth, appear respectable and are therefore granted power. Unfortunately, it is exactly their lack of virtue that defines them as good old “boys.”

To anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of dealing with such people, it should be obvious that Palin would not fit in with them. There would be some immediate aspersion cast upon her because she is a woman, yes, but that would be one of her smaller problems.

Larger problems would arise because of her attitude. She too readily speaks her mind without first understanding the “structure” of things. She doesn’t know who has been around or for how long. Worse yet, she probably doesn’t even know how much money they have.

Unbelievably, she probably doesn’t care about those things as much as she cares about ideas. While she’s talking about abortion or corruption in government, the “good old boys” would be staring blankly at her and wondering who invited this moron to their club. (The “club,” of course, is a local city council meeting or some similar body of government.) They’ll scoff at her as being someone who doesn’t understand that politics is all about money and connections, and that any so-called “corruption” is simply the creative use of those things.

Imagine their surprise and anger when this naïve, idealistic blowhard actually runs against them and wins.

For a woman without any special amount of speaking ability (I found her reminiscent of my mother), I found Palin unexpectedly inspirational. And it was because I didn’t need to have her story narrated to me to know what it was; every fiber of the woman’s being screamed that we not only agreed on common issues, we had the same understanding of human nature. Forget about politics. 

In a time when too many in her party’s leadership do not understand or care about what it means when the rest of us say that the party has lost its way, Palin has been a godsend. The September 4th issue of Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) emphasized this in a front page article about where the Republican Party went wrong.

It quoted former House Majority Leader Tom Delay, who “denied that [the party] had lost its way” under his tenure. He “rejected criticisms that the party had gone overboard on spending.”

(DeLay declared in 2005 that Republicans had achieved an “ongoing victory” against federal pork. “After 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good," he said. This was in spite of the fact that the president had just proposed a total budget for 2005 of $2.4 trillion, up from Bill Clinton’s proposed budget of $1.9 trillion for 2001. The current president’s last proposal was for a budget of $3.1 trillion in 2009.)

“We don’t have the organization” to win, IBD quoted DeLay as saying. “For us to regain our majority will take five to ten years.”

How does a party that holds the presidency and, until 2006, held fifty-five seats in the United States Senate need more organization? Unfortunately, the story didn’t quote DeLay getting to that part. Rather than taking responsibility, DeLay laid his failings as a leader at the feet of his followers. How absurd.

Palin’s running mate is not ideal, but this election is the best and perhaps only means to putting a normal American in the White House. There have been a few fatalistic columns written since Palin’s nomination lamenting that she will no longer be an idealist by the time McCain has left office. Perhaps, but adherents to that belief have only one option left. That is to find a cave and barricade its entrance, because there literally is no hope left for them.

The rest of us will fight for Sarah Palin’s success. The more we see the contrast between her and the self-serving good old boys who have spent past decades destroying our political system, the more unquestionable it becomes that the latter group must be absolutely obliterated and blotted out of our history. If we succeed in this, Americans will see the dawn of something that they can believe in again.