America’s Iron Lady?

Let me first admit that I took a lot of notes, had a lot of things I wanted to highlight from the various speeches, wrote down some of the great lines, and was all ready to handicap 2010 (Rudy, Mitt, Huck, Newt and maybe Jindal) but I threw all of it away because none of that matters, we have more important things to talk about.

The maverick Senator from Arizona, who in the past has denigrated the conservative right by passing campaign finance reform, and looking the other way on illegal immigration, also may have paved the way for another conservative revolution in America by selecting Sarah Palin to be his Vice President.

My expectations for Palin’s speech were high, so high that I was a bit nervous as she walked out to the convention floor. After days of having her family life probed, and the media calling her selection a “gimmick pick” that wasn’t truly vetted by the McCain campaign, Palin took the stage and with grace, humor, and resolve and then delivered the best republican speech that I can remember.

She owned that stage last night and in doing so broke the glass ceiling in the conservative movement in America. Sure Phyllis Schlafly is an icon but she’s not the messenger that Palin can be. There is no question that both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee desperately want to be the face of the future of the conservative movement now must contend with Palin, who easily embodies what a conservative is.

Palin has probably had the most difficult first week on the campaign trail as anyone I can remember, not because of a gaff, but because of the instant attacks from the left and the media. Her speech last Friday was a home run, and she was out of this world last night. She will now have to make the rounds with the main street media, and I don’t think she will disappoint us.

What we saw last night was a woman who is very comfortable with who she is, and what she believes. As I watch her she reminds me of another Lady who also stuck firm to her beliefs and went on to become the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher played a little hockey in her young days too.

The attempts by the media that John McCain didn’t vet Palin were proven wrong last night. The notion that somehow Barack Obama is ready to be president but Palin isn’t ready to serve as Vice President doesn’t hold any water. Why? Because nobody goes into the oval office prepared for what may come their way. In 2000, nobody was talking about whether or not Bush or Gore was prepared to deal with the terrorist attacks against our county, but President Bush stepped up and rallied our Nation in its darkest hour.

When John McCain is elected President, and Sarah Palin Vice President, conservatives will have a new face for their movement, and American will finally have its own Iron Lady.