The VP McCain should look at

Forget the fact she is easy on the eye (seriously, do), she is as sharp as they come - this is why Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) should be on McCain's short list for VP - especially against Obama.

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."

As recently as last year, Palin (pronounced pale-in) was a political outcast. She resigned in January 2004 as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after complaining to the office of Governor Frank Murkowski and to state Attorney General Gregg Renkes about ethical violations by another commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, who was also Republican state chairman.

State law barred Palin from speaking out publicly about ethical violations and corruption. But she was vindicated later in 2004 when Ruedrich, who'd been reconfirmed as state chairman, agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking state ethics laws. She became a hero in the eyes of the public and the press, and the bane of Republican leaders.

In 2005, she continued to take on
the Republican establishment by joining Eric Croft, a Democrat, in lodging an ethics complaint against Renkes, who was not only attorney general but also a long-time adviser and campaign manager for Murkowski. The governor reprimanded Renkes and said the case was closed. It wasn't. Renkes resigned a few weeks later, and Palin was again hailed as a hero.

She is all about going after corrupt Legislatures (she has been so tough on Republican sleaze that the Republican Chairman in AK won't even talk to her), tough on spending and generally a Conservative's conservative. In summary (with a little past added in for you jocks),

• Point Guard for the basketball team that won the 1982 State Championship.
  
• Attacked and destroyed the corrupt members of her own party.
• Highest approval ratings of any governor in the country, with ratings in recent polls between 89-93%.
• 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."
• Pro-life.
• Life member of the NRA.

She and her husband are expecting their 5th child (she if 43) in May (that may knock her out for VP as what a recovery that would be). Speaking of her husband - he is her secret weapon. His job? Commercial Alaskan fisherman.

Everyone who watches "Deadliest Catch" will be voting early and often.

Read more about her here, and here.

McCain-Palin '08. You heard it here first - last July - and other places as late as August. Stay tuned; I would love to see '08 adds like this.