John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin for vice president sends a bold message across the political spectrum to those who prefer politics as usual. The Alaska governor’s record of reform gives Americans insight into McCain’s character, courage, commitment to change government, and the pick reinforces his ‘Maverick’ persona. Make no mistake, McCain picked no shrinking violet.

Sarah Palin, wife and mother to five children, is a poised, articulate, family friendly conservative, who is energetic, staunchly pro-life and pro-Second Amendment.

While serving in three different levels of elective office — council, mayor and governor — Palin demonstrated persistent diligence in each assignment, and she delivered common-sense solutions for constituents. As a result, Palin reduced the costs of government and individual taxes for Alaskans.

Moreover, her willingness to take on entrenched interests, including both big spending bureaucrats and those politicians whose behavior indicates they think ethics does not apply to them, tells Americans much about Palin and the credibility of her bona fides as a real reformer. McCain recognizes that Palin fits the profile of the VP he needs to help reform the federal government. Her plain speaking directness is what McCain, for years, has called “straight talk.”

All of this synchronizes with what most Americans want and expect of elected officials at all levels.

The Palin servant style of public service, belief in limited government, along with her personal freedom positions on other issues, will attract a broad cross-section of all Americans, including many original supporters of Congressman Ron Paul and those of current Libertarian nominee Bob Barr.

Palin is a fresh face on the national scene, who has already excited the Republican base, and should help McCain increase support from rural voters, suburban soccer moms and other women, especially those not chained to the single anchor of abortion rights.

McCain’s selection of Palin caught the Democrats napping. Politically startled, the Obama campaign foolishly overreacted to the pick. Here’s a brief recap including media quotes.

Before McCain and Palin took the stage to make the Republican presidential ticket official, Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton slammed the choice of the young Alaska governor saying, “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.”

Ironically, what Burton said was a double-edged sword also pointing out two facts about the Democrat’s own ticket: 9,000 being just about the total votes Joe Biden received nationally during Democrat primaries; and “zero foreign policy experience” accurately describes Barack Obama himself. Another ugly fact for Democrats, which the mainstream media has not chosen to report clearly, is that Sarah Palin actually has more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined.

All of this, required Obama to have to, later in the day, explain his campaign’s “hair-trigger” comments, saying, “I think that, uh, you know campaigns start getting these uh, hair triggers and, uh, the statement that Joe and I put out reflects our sentiments.”

Obama’s stilted response aside, the “hair trigger” liberal attack mentality sets themselves up for such mistakes. In this instance it uncovers a lack of self-discipline so essential in foreign relations and, to make the matter worse, the Obama campaign’s thoughtless haste also showed undecided voters an insightful contrast between the campaigns and the two standard bearers. Just the evening before, following Obama’s acceptance speech, the McCain campaign ran a classy television spot in which John McCain graciously congratulated Barack Obama for his historic achievement.

During Obama’s attempt to recover his campaign’s fumble, he also said that he “had not met Palin”, but called her a “compelling person, with a terrific personal story.”

Those are interesting words indeed.

Despite the generic trends that continue to favor the Democrats, it appears that John “Maverick” McCain may be skillfully building a compelling case with which to convince Americans that he and Sarah Palin have the right principles, personal commitment and understanding of what needs to be done and how to clean up politics, reform government and lead the United States well into the 21st century.

Richard Olivastro is a member of the National Speakers Association, president of People Dynamics and founder of Citizens For Change. He can be reached at Rich@Olivastro.net or 877-RichSpeaks.