Voting for McCain for 2 reasons.  It is a vote against Obama…No way, no how, nobama!But more recently it is mostly a vote for Sarah Palin. She is the real deal IMO and future of the Republican party and American politics, but if and only if she gets into national office. She is far more than just a cosmetic fix and has shown she is very experienced and qualified to lead and manage.Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the new Iron Lady.

I might vote for McCain, but I won't vote for Sarah Palin to be President when McCain is done.  She's a nice cosmetic fix to a very flawed ticket, but she's not Presidential material herself (let's hope McCain's ticker doesn't give out before his four years are up). 🙂

Is it because you're intimidated after watching her at the range?  ;DActually I think there's not all that much to go by right now except her past record as reported by the filter which is the media, and one or two talks she's given.  Do we really know her positions on issues?  Do we really know how she would govern?  We're really probably better off asking Alaskans about this, but so far I haven't really heard many (if any) of them interviewed.  In the end I think the presidency is much larger than any one person.  None of the candidates on either side have presidential experience, and so it's "on the job learning" for all of them with the help of many trusted advisers.  What we're really looking for are clues as to how a candidate would vote in the future based on what they say today and what they've done in the past.  I don't think that the country would fall apart if Obama gets elected but I do think his policies would tend to the left - perhaps much more to the left - than he gives on in his speeches.   

I'm sure Palin could “do the job” as president, but eventually we need someone in there who can “excel” at the job and help spread America's vision to the rest of the world in such a manner that the rest of the world will accept and go along.

Well, let's take it one election at a time.  😀  I would imagine if a McCain presidency gets a high popularity rating, she'll have a great chance in 2012.   And by then, she'll have reached that "excelled" level! Defending Gov. Palin is hard work and sure can keep a guy busy.  I even have to do this on a global scale in Irish and British newspaper blogs.

I don't think conservatives are used to pointing this out, but there's got to be some gender issues at play here in why people are attacking her.  There is something about an attractive female in power at the center stage that can evoke feelings of "gladness" or "disgust" or the sensation that she would be a "ditz" or incompetent.  Liberals out there seem to be showing themselves to have prejudices about such gender issues, and I think it's good in the sense that society is able to witness to the true nature of liberalism.

I would agree with you that we don't know if she would "excel" at the job simply because we don't know her well enough yet.  We also don't know fore sure if McCain could excel either, but we have heard him enough to have a sense of how he would govern.  For all we know Palin could govern higher or lower than our expectations of her.  But I think we can trust her to a good degree on certain issues because her past choices, made during her governorship when she wasn't running for VP, were based on principle.  For example, the decision to keep her baby with Down Syndrome was as principled and as real of a choice a person could make.  From that we can see she's a person who will make extremely difficult choices which she knows will directly affect her own situation because it's the right thing to do.  I think that reveals a lot about her character.