What does this mean?  Is it true?  Who says it is true?  I am constantly confronted by friends and neighbors who understand that I am a Tea Party Conservative and say to me, "Please don't tell me that you would support Sarah Palin."   Why, I ask?  "Be serious," I am told.  I am serious, I say.  What do you have against Sarah Palin? 

I understand that more than half of the country regards her negatively but why?  Could it be that since she came onto the national political scene that she has been maligned and unmercifully made the target by a media that itself has no credibility in similar polls?    

We are told that she has political baggage.  Of course that baggage didn't come with her.  It was given to her by that same press corps I just mentioned.  I ask those who have told me that I can't seriously regard Palin as a candidate what this baggage is and I get responses like, "You know."   "She isn't smart enough."  "She is too conservative."  "She is too religious."  "She has no gravitas."  No, I say, give me something specific.  For example, let's look at her record. 

• She was governor of the state that represents the largest of all fifty territorially.  Alaska is a state rich in natural resources and the closest of all our states to our former cold war enemy.  

• She successfully fought corruption in Alaska government seeing many "good old boys" go to jail.

• She introduced fiscal responsibility to the Alaska state budget.   

• She took on the major oil companies and improved the lives of all Alaskans on the basis of what she was able to achieve regarding oil leases that were not being worked.  

• She was the 2008 Vice Presidential nominee for the Republican Party

Surely one must admit she has gravitas.  Had she not gravitas why would the Northeastern Press Corps choose to follow her all over New England on Memorial Day Weekend?

Not smart enough?  As compared to whom?  She is playing that press corps like a fiddle right now and doing things so unconventionally that she demonstrates that these "Journalists" can't think outside the box or the Washington Beltway.     

Too conservative?  When did standing up for traditional values and the principles that built this nation become too conservative?  I have witnessed through my lifetime the incremental destruction of the values that I was raised to look upon as good.  These values are the ones Americans once stood for.  They are the values that sent us overseas to fight in two world wars and that led us to liberate and not conquer.  They are the values that stood for personal liberty, freedom, rule of law not of men, self reliance, accountability, patriotism, respect for our nation and its symbols, respect for fellow human beings, hard work, pride and self accomplishment.  This is what Sarah Palin talks about all the time and there is nothing wrong and nothing solely conservative about those ideals.  They were not only held onto by Barry Goldwater but also by Franklin Roosevelt and John F Kennedy.   Yet because of the manner in which these ideas have been belittled and chipped at for years many in Washington and in America have taken the position of Ted Kennedy instead of John Kennedy and let me clue you in, Ted was the truly stupid one.  

Too religious?  Why?  Has she attempted to impose her religion on you as would the muslim or the atheist?  She has every right to triumph in her attitude about God and her religion as long as she does not impose her belief on you or me.  So, just how is it that she is too religious?

I don't know whether Sarah Palin will run, whether if she runs she can win the nomination or whether I would even support her for the nomination but please, do not judge her too early or base your judgment on what the pundits say in Washington or by these early polls.  Once people have a chance to meet her and listen to her on the stump I would wager that she will do well and exponentially improve on those negatives. 

Sarah Palin unelectable?  I think not but let's just say for the sake of argument that she is unelectable.  What then will happen when both the Republican and the Democrat candidates are unelectable?  Because one thing for damn sure, Barack Obama in 2012 is unelectable.