McCain picks "Sarah Barracuda"

I have been a fan of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for months. This is a bold, game-changing move for John McCain. Americans will be charmed and galvanized by Governor Palin as her story is told over the next few weeks. Conservatives will be energized, and this will help Republicans down ticket.

While musing about 2008 Republican vice presidential candidates last fall, I become enamored with a certain young, charismatic, cold-weather state, winter sports loving Republican governor whose electoral victory was one of the few bright spots for the party in 2006.

Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin is a conservative before she's a Republican. As Fred Barnes reported in the July 16, 2007 Weekly Standard:

The wipeout in the 2006 election left Republicans in such a state of dejection that they've overlooked the one shining victory in which a Republican star was born. The triumph came in Alaska where Sarah Palin, a politician of eye-popping integrity, was elected governor. She is now the most popular governor in America, with an approval rating in the 90s, and probably the most popular public official in any state.

Her rise is a great (and rare) story of how adherence to principle — especially to transparency and accountability in government — can produce political success. And by the way, Palin is a conservative who only last month vetoed 13 percent of the state's proposed budget for capital projects. The cuts, the Anchorage Daily News said, "may be the biggest single-year line-item veto total in state history."

Gov. Palin's nickname on her high school basketball team was "Sarah Barracuda." This go-getter and great American is just what Republicans need to win the White House in 2008 — and quite possibly in 2012 with Palin at the top of the ticket.