<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  As an heir to Goldwater Republicanism transplanted to a notoriously liberal college in the northeast, I&amp;#039;m the token conservative in my social circle. So it was no surprise that I was bombarded with emails and text messages Friday morning when it leaked that John McCain had picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. &amp;quot;What was John McCain thinking?&amp;quot; one friend wrote. &amp;quot;This has to be the biggest blunder since Harriet Miers,&amp;quot; referring to Bush&amp;#039;s failed Supreme Court appointment in 2005. Others were equally unimpressed\u2014and elated. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m so glad he picked her,&amp;quot; gushed a roommate of mine, &amp;quot;because now Obama will definitely win!&amp;quot; This got me worrying. Were my friends, along with so many of the pundits, right that Sarah Palin is bound to be a disaster? Like many people who follow politics, I knew virtually nothing about her until a few months ago when her name was floated as a potential veep for McCain. But having since read numerous accounts of Palin&amp;#039;s life and having watched and re-watched McCain&amp;#039;s official introduction of Palin in Dayton, Ohio Friday, I could not be happier with his choice. A self-professed &amp;quot;hockey mom&amp;quot; turned politico, Palin possesses the same fresh-faced qualities that people find enchanting in Barack Obama (of course, Obama addicts will never admit this). She also has the solidly conservative priorities that will please voters on the right.  One of the biggest criticisms aired about McCain&amp;#039;s choice in Palin is that the move is a pathetic attempt to woo Hillary voters who are still licking their wounds from the rough primary season. According to many pundits, this strategy won&amp;#039;t work, because Hillary supporters care about &amp;quot;women&amp;#039;s progress,&amp;quot; and Palin&amp;#039;s politics do not represent progress for women. It&amp;#039;s true that Palin is no fan of the leftist&amp;#039;s agenda: She&amp;#039;s solidly pro-life, she&amp;#039;s against same-sex marriage (but then, so is Obama), and she supports the teaching of creationism in schools. But the pundits don&amp;#039;t get it. They&amp;#039;re confusing the advancement of women in the public sphere with the advancement of so-called &amp;quot;Women&amp;#039;s Issues,&amp;quot; a label the left has successfully stuck on a slew of special-interest issues. &amp;quot;Women&amp;quot; do not all march in lockstep. Pundits are probably right that voters who care about Women&amp;#039;s Issues are not going to vote red just for Sarah, and that&amp;#039;s fine. But this analysis ignores the significance of her candidacy and her potential to help bring the GOP into the future. McCain&amp;#039;s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate is the realization of what I and other young progressive conservatives have longed for: A rebranding of the conservative woman in America. McCain&amp;#039;s promise of change has been lost in most media coverage of recent months, because it is hard to compete with the much sexier Obamas. This will now emerge, as Palin&amp;#039;s impressive personal story as a modern woman complements McCain&amp;#039;s open-minded strain of conservatism (his endorsement of embryonic stem cell research, his reputation as an immigration dove, and his promise to make the environment a priority, among other things). Though I may differ from Sarah Palin in some of my views, her story of traditionalism fused with progressivism inspires me. Just a dozen or so years ago, Palin was a quintessential small-town mom on the City Council of Wasilla, Alaska. She ascended to the position of mayor by fighting corruption, even lowering her own salary as mayor. As Governor, Palin sold her official plane and took commercial flights to save money. She even took on the Chair of the Alaska GOP, whom she accused of ethics violations. In other words, Palin&amp;#039;s no good ol&amp;#039; boy (not even a good ol&amp;#039; girl). And in her political rise, she has not sacrificed her personal life. As a younger woman, Palin was a fierce athlete and a pageant girl, who was a runner-up in Miss Alaska. Now, at the age of forty-four, she has five children, the youngest of whom has Downs Syndrome\u2014an example of her commitment to her stated values. Palin has a modern marriage, sharing the childrearing with her husband Todd. Palin speaks to me as a young woman just beginning my professional life, because she has achieved some of the things I want most: She&amp;#039;s a mother and a high-powered career woman; she&amp;#039;s a tough negotiator and a fan of pink skirt suits; she&amp;#039;s a hunter and a beauty queen. (Well, maybe I&amp;#039;ll leave bloodsports and beauty pageants to Sarah.) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/news/a750/not-your-average-beauty-queen-3819/>