The harpies can diss Sarah Palin all they want.  (Thanks, Mary.)  The more they rag on her, the more they look like the we're-so-cool cliques we all hated in high school.  And they're at about that level, too, because the truth is they can't touch Sarah's authenticity. 

 

Who cares about her hairstyle?  She's energized the base in a big way.

 

And the issue isn't experience, much as the Obama camp wants to paint that picture.

 

It's CHANGE.  The McCain-Palin ticket has taken the wind out of Obama's mainsail and dang near snapped the mast (nautical reference as a nod to Sarah's great comment in her speech on Saturday: "A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built").

 

Real change, as opposed to change rhetoric.

 

We get that, loud and clear, even here in blue-collar America.

 

Tell you what, Mr. Obama.  I'm a 50-something grandma. I've voted in every presidential election since 1972.  That's nine of 'em.  This November will be the tenth.  Want to know how long it's been since I've actively signed on to work for a campaign -- contribute to it, ring doorbells for it, slap a bumper sticker on my car, wear a button, talk up the ticket to everybody I know?

 

Since Johnson ran against Goldwater in 1964.  And please note that I was too young to vote at the time (and had no car); my cousin and I just liked the idea of prancing up and down our residential sidewalk chanting "LBJ for the USA".

 

About ten seconds after I found out Palin was on McCain's ticket, I signed up. 

 

Change from authenticity trumps smooth talk in my southern Illinois neighborhood.  We know the real deal when we see it.

 

 

 

 

First came the highlighting of Joe Biden's nominal Catholicism at every opportunity, followed by the "faith-(or something) filled" convention opener (with a Catholic sister in the lineup of speakers).  If the thing had been any more "faith-filled", there would have been an altar call.  And of course, in political terms, there was; an entire week of the faithful (Obama supporters) and converts (Hillary's delegates) coming forward to declare acceptance of the annointed one into their hearts.  (Well, except for the PUMAs.)  Nothing new about that, convention-wise.

But Catholics were being wooed, wined and dined in a big way.  Gee, you think somebody wants our votes?  If the fundamentalists and most evangelicals are all but lost to them, we're "up for grabs".   So we got to hear about everybody's Catholicism from Biden's to Sr. Prejean's to Pelosi's (although obviously she needed a bit of a catechesis refresher, and got it).  As if that weren't enough, they have Doug Kmiec, a Catholic university professor with a long list of impressive credentials, telling us with no authority whatsoever why it's okay for Catholics to vote for Obama (though he may -- or may not -- have been denied Communion since he came out publicly in support of Obama) and his book with roughly the same title is due to be published soon. 

There's one teeny tiny problem with all the feel-good stuff about Obama: Much as some of us want to see changes, there looms large the Democratic party's plank on abortion.  In case it's escaped anyone's notice in all of the talk of God and faith from the podium, that plank no longer even bothers to couch their position on abortion in the cautionary language of "safe, legal, and rare".  It now baldly states:

“The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right”.

And the Church states:

"Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life ... Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense."

A vote for the Democratic party candidate is certainly a conscious act in agreement with their entire platform, including this plank, and therefore looks a whole lot like formal cooperation. 

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver has put it in even clearer terms, stating that Catholics who support pro-abortion candidates need "a compelling proportionate reason to justify it.  What is a 'proportionate' reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It's the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life - which we most certainly will. If we're confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed."

I can't come up with any "proportionate" reason to vote for a candidate who supports many "rights" but not the one right which all other rights presuppose:  Life, for every person.  Nor have the thoroughly seduced Catholics like Kmiec given us anything more substantial than the opinion that gee, at least Obama is willing to listen to pro-life people.  He's also very willing to make statements such as the one in July 2007 to a Planned Parenthood group that the first thing he would do as President was sign into law the "Freedom of Choice Act".  

Therefore, it's not a quote from Obama or even Kmiec that will drive my vote in November, but Dr. Seuss: "A person's a person, no matter how small". If that makes me a much-derided single-issue voter, so be it.  I want to face those victims, and most especially my Savior, with a clean heart.

 

EDIT:  Board-Certified M.D. over at Powder Tracks found a nice quote from Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life that kind of makes all the flowers and candy the Dems are handing us look even more slimy and calculating: