Strike One...

Welcome to political baseball! Last night Sarah Palin took the stage at the Republican National Convention and hit a home run with her speech, giving the Democrats their first strike out. As with regular baseball, they have two more strikes and they're out. We feel those two opportunities will come at the Vice-President debate against Joe Biden, when we anticipate that Biden will spend most of his time trying to find a base to stand on while Palin hits another home run. The third strike opportunity will be when John McCain and Barack Obama debate each other and Barack finds out that he forgot to bring his game mitt.

We have pulled a few of Governor Palin's remarks from her speech and posted them below. She definitely showed up with her game face on and the other team is beginning to realize that this is a game they can't play without wearing a cup.

Over the next few weeks, Governor Palin will be discredited, criticized, mocked, and scorned. But we have no doubt that she will continue to stand victorious in the face of the low-lifes who will attack her. Keep in mind that the attacks will come because the other side is frightened. They are frightened by a woman who knows who she is and walks her own talk. So they have to attack her type of feminism (keep in mind, they are for feminists and women's rights -- as long as it fits their rules for feminists and women's rights), and the way she mothers her children.

If by some chance she and McCain lose this election, she will still be a winner because she has a family who loves her, a state who reveres her, and self-assurance and confidence that will carry her through the ups and downs of life. How do we know that? Because she's already done it.

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Governor Palin's speech excerpts:

A writer observed: "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity." I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.

I grew up with those people.

They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America ... who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.

They love their country, in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town.

I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids' public education better.

When I ran for city council, I didn't need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too. (Blogger Comment: Ironically, these are the same small town, middle class people the Democrats CLAIM to represent, but have never understood. Governor Palin is actually one of those middle class people.)

Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.
And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities. I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening. (Blogger Comment: No one has ever been able to provide a job description for a community organizer. We still don't know exactly what experience Obama brings to political office. And, for the record, we don't BITTERLY cling to our religion, but we GRATEFULLY cling to Jesus Christ.)

And I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.

But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people. (Blogger Comment: Good for her. We can't be the only people who are sick and tired of the liberal media pushing their own candidate and trying to make Governor Palin's very normal life look like a scandal.)

But we are expected to govern with integrity, good will, clear convictions, and ... a servant's heart. (Blogger Comment: What a refreshing change that will be!)

Our state budget is under control.

We have a surplus.

And I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending: nearly half a billion dollars in vetoes.

I suspended the state fuel tax, and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress.

I told the Congress "thanks, but no thanks," for that Bridge to Nowhere.

If our state wanted a bridge, we'd build it ourselves. When oil and gas prices went up dramatically, and filled up the state treasury, I sent a large share of that revenue back where it belonged - directly to the people of Alaska. (Blogger Comment: What would it be like to have more of our money to keep for ourselves?)

I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history.

And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly forty billion dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.

That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

The stakes for our nation could not be higher.

When a hurricane strikes in the Gulf of Mexico, this country should not be so dependent on imported oil that we are forced to draw from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

And families cannot throw away more and more of their paychecks on gas and heating oil.

With Russia wanting to control a vital pipeline in the Caucasus, and to divide and intimidate our European allies by using energy as a weapon, we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers.

To confront the threat that Iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of world energy supplies ... or that terrorists might strike again at the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia ... or that Venezuela might shut off its oil deliveries ... we Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas.

And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: we've got lots of both.

Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems - as if we all didn't know that already.

But the fact that drilling won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all.

Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines ... build more nuclear plants ... create jobs with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources.

We need American energy resources, brought to you by American ingenuity, and produced by American workers. (Blogger Comment: Thank goodness that someone is willing to do something to help our energy dependence. Nancy Pelosi is too busy saving the planet -- what's she going to do when she's done saving the planet, only to turn around and realize she's killed her own country?)

And there is much to like and admire about our opponent.

But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.

This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy ... our opponent is against producing it.

Victory in Iraq is finally in sight ... he wants to forfeit.

Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay ... he wants to meet them without preconditions.

Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights? Government is too big ... he wants to grow it.

Congress spends too much ... he promises more.

Taxes are too high ... he wants to raise them. His tax increases are the fine print in his economic plan, and let me be specific.

The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes ... raise payroll taxes ... raise investment income taxes ... raise the death tax ... raise business taxes ... and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars. My sister Heather and her husband have just built a service station that's now opened for business - like millions of others who run small businesses.

How are they going to be any better off if taxes go up? Or maybe you're trying to keep your job at a plant in Michigan or Ohio ... or create jobs with clean coal from Pennsylvania or West Virginia ... or keep a small farm in the family right here in Minnesota.

How are you going to be better off if our opponent adds a massive tax burden to the American economy? Here's how I look at the choice Americans face in this election. (Blogger Comment: You Go, Girl!)

Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the current do-nothing Senate, not long ago summed up his feelings about our nominee.He said, quote, "I can't stand John McCain." Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we've chosen the right man. Clearly what the Majority Leader was driving at is that he can't stand up to John McCain. That is only one more reason to take the maverick of the Senate and put him in the White House. (Blogger Comment: As Nevadans, we can attest to the idiotic statements that Harry Reid makes. Harry, who is in the Senate to promote his own agenda, has lost all interest in representing Nevadans. We're pretty confident that Nevadans are going to let Harry retire in 2011.)

And though both Senator Obama and Senator Biden have been going on lately about how they are always, quote, "fighting for you," let us face the matter squarely.There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you ... in places where winning means survival and defeat means death ... and that man is John McCain. (Blogger Comment: AMEN!)