Even a Journalist can be VP!

By: Sarah Harl

In the short time since John McCain named Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) as his running mate for the upcoming campaign, the announcement has been met with either a confident nod in her direction, or a fierce attack on her character and experience. As a voter who caucused for McCain in January, I was eager to find out more about Governor Palin, beyond the media hype.

On December 4th, 2006, Palin was elected the 11th (and first woman) Governor of Alaska. She quickly and forcefully took out an incumbent governor, and had a string of priorities as she took office. Everything from education and workforce development to transportation and infrastructure development.

Palin was also able to overhaul education funding and put a program in place for low income older Alaskans, all while maintaining $5 billion in state savings.

Perhaps most remarkably, Palin has been able to do all of this while maintaining an 89-93% approval rating making Palin one of the most popular governors in the United States. And she continues to have a high approval rating with her family of five children, with whose lives she continues to be involved in.

Many liberal bloggers chose to attack Palin for her lack of "experience", but I would put to those bloggers to answer what constitutes "experience". Palin graduated as a Communications-Journalism major from the University of Idaho, and then worked her way up to the governorship of Alaska, starting as a small town mayor. It seems that through many of these blogs, bloggers mention in a condescending way that Palin is the governor of Alaska, almost as if anyone could be the governor of this state. Or that her experience as the mother of five will in no way benefit her in the vice-presidency. From what I have gathered, she is a woman who has been able to maintain her high approval ratings because she says she is going to do something, and then she gets it done, something the men of Washington seem to be lacking as of recently.

Perhaps what endears me so to Palin is that she is honored to have been picked as a running mate--one of the few genuine statements that I've seen come out of this election so far.

So, she's just a journalism major, and just the governor of Alaska. I'm just a communications major from a little college in Iowa. But that doesn't mean that I haven't taken on some big projects with more "experience" than someone from a bigger school. Experience isn't what you can list on a piece of paper, it's what you can go out and DO, and I think we should all give Palin a chance to put this country back on track.