"Sarah Smile" on Sarah Palin Day

By David Fowler, President

History will be made in November regardless of who wins the Presidential election. And while all “experience” will be an issue – who has enough and of what kind – the Presidential tickets teach us something important we shouldn’t forget. What the nomination of Sarah Palin should teach us is that elections at the local level matter!
What the nomination of Sarah Palin should teach us is that elections at the local level matter!

We direct enormous amounts of money, time, energy and effort toward the federal level and electing the right people. That is all well and good. But a little more attention paid to campaigns at the state and local level could result in better choices at the federal level. For example, consider that Barack Obama was, just four years ago, a state Senator and it was his first elected office. And Sarah Palin’s first elected office, just twelve years ago, was Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska .

Consider that six years ago, four of Tennessee ’s current nine U.S. Representatives were serving in the Tennessee General Assembly. Seven of the current 33 state Senators started their public service holding office in local government. And to put this into a larger historical context, three of the 19 U.S. Presidents (nearly 20%) who held office in the 20th century got their start in local government. Trivia question: Can you name these three presidents? (Keep reading for the answer).

The point is that holding office at one level can often be the building block for holding office at the next level. The school board member or county commissioner becomes the state Representative or Senator. The state Representative or Senator becomes a U.S. Senator or Representative or Governor (and don’t think a flock of current state Representatives and Senators won’t be eying the 2010 Governor’s race).

So when you go to the polls in November to vote for your state Representative or state Senator, ask yourself, “Is the kind of person with the kind of values that I would want to help launch to the ’next level’ of political office? Ask yourself, “By not getting involved and not voting, who am I helping start a run up the ladder of political office?” Like “small town mayor” Sarah Palin, you never know where that legislator from the “small town” might wind up.

To avoid being in that position a few years from now, know who you are voting to send to the General Assembly. The results of FACT’s Legislative Candidate Survey will soon be posted on-line and you should see where the candidates for your district line up. And make sure the person you vote for represents your values.

You may recall the old Hall and Oats song (yes, I’m old enough to remember them) “Sarah Smile,” and if so, we hope Sarah Palin will still be able to keep smiling as the days unfold.

And if you don’t think and do what the group thinks and does, you are betraying the “group” which, by the way, you may never have considered yourself to be a part of in the first place.

She has already been attacked by those who find a pro-life, Christian woman gun owner an anathema to women’s rights. It is amazing to me how, for all our stress on liberty, equality, individuality and autonomy, we find an increase in “group think” and “class identification” For example, all women are a part of the “women’s movement,” all laborers must be part of the “labor movement,” all African American’s must be Democrats, all homosexuals must support the “gay agenda” and on and on. In other words, people in a certain “class” or “group” begin to think that everyone with physical or economic characteristics similar to those in the “group” are members of the group. And if you don’t think and do what the group thinks and does, you are betraying the “group” which, by the way, you may never have considered yourself to be a part of in the first place.

In this I’m reminded of DeTouquville’s prediction in Democracy in America about the rise of such thinking:
The nearer the people are drawn to the common level of an equal and similar condition, … [their] readiness to believe the multitude increases, and opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. … [I]t may be foreseen that faith in public opinion will become for [Americans] a species of religion, and the majority its ministering prophet.

There is, and I cannot repeat it too often, there is here matter for profound reflection to those who look on freedom of thought as a holy thing and who hate not only the despot, but despotism. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke because it is held out to me by the arms of a million men.

Group think and political correctness are grave threats to the pursuit of truth and freedom in America . It is okay for a woman to oppose abortion and to go hunting.

So, Sarah, keep thinking for yourself. And keep smiling!

Perhaps the most serious charge against Governor Palin is she’s not ready for the “big time” of Washington politics and the Vice Presidency. There’s more than a little humor and irony here if you ask me.

And while some have said that running a state the size of Alaska does not provide sufficient “executive experience,” I’m sure Governor Palin will smile when folks begin to realize that the size of the state budget she administers is nearly twice as large (even when adjusted for inflation) as the Arkansas budget that President Bill Clinton administered in 1991, the year before he became President.

While every ‘small town” mayor should be proud that “one of their kind” could prove worthy of a Vice Presidential nomination, from some of the reaction to Governor Palin’s background, you might have thought that only a Mayor from a large city like Detroit or Washington, D.C., would be competent to serve as Vice President.

At first, I laughed at such a criticism because everyone has to start somewhere, but then I got to thinking about Washington politics. It was then that I remembered that the Mayor’s of those two Cities have had all kinds of moral and ethical and legal problems…..So, maybe Governor Palin’s protagonists are right….those kinds of mayors are better qualified for Washington politics! Keep smiling Governor!

And while some have said that running a state the size of Alaska does not provide sufficient “executive experience,” I’m sure Governor Palin will smile when folks begin to realize that the size of the state budget she administers is nearly twice as large (even when adjusted for inflation) as the Arkansas budget that President Bill Clinton administered in 1991, the year before he became President. At the time, Arkansas had the 37th largest state budget; Alaska ’s state budget is currently ranked 32nd. I can see it now - detractors will now call her fiscally irresponsible and a big spender.

Keep smiling Governor!

Since being nominated, it has now been revealed that Governor Palin’s daughter is pregnant out of wedlock. Some liberals have gone apoplectic in calling her a hypocrite.

I find such a charge amusing from a press that would cover up an affair and possible out-of-wedlock child by someone who was actually a candidate (John Edwards and for President no less), rather than the child of a candidate. But, even hypocrites can identify hypocrisy, so let’s examine the charge a bit more closely.
My guess is that what liberals and Christian detractors don’t get is a Christian who says sex outside marriage is wrong and then says they love the child who has done the wrong thing. But what they don’t get is that any other response is what would, indeed, be hypocritical.

First, I would imagine that those who would level such a charge are childless, or at least have not yet parented a teenager! Parents know that their kids are not perfect. And they know that even perfect parents can have troubled kids. The Rev. and Mrs. Billy Graham, I presume, were okay parents, but their son, Franklin Graham, sure broke their hearts a number of times. The fact is parents are not their children, especially when those children are old enough not to come under a parent’s watchful eye every moment.

But second, and most importantly, Governor Palin has not said that premarital sex is now good and she thinks it is a great thing. It would be hypocritical to change her position on sex within marriage now that her child has rejected her parent’s values.

My guess is that what liberals and Christian detractors don’t get is a Christian who says sex outside marriage is wrong and then says they love the child who has done the wrong thing. But what they don’t get is that any other response is what would, indeed, be hypocritical.

There are two priceless stories in Christendom to those of us who have experienced God’s grace which is the revelation that shows us how short we have fallen and simultaneously shows us the forgiveness for which the “exposed” heart then cries out. The first story is Jesus telling the woman caught in adultery, who the crowd wanted to stone, that her sin was forgiven and to go and “sin no more.” The second is the Prodigal Son - a picture of the God who knows we have chosen a selfish course that will lead to our destruction but who longs to receive us with open arms when we return with repentant, contrite hearts.

For Christians, these stories tell us what the Apostle John summarized this way: Jesus was “grace and truth.” Grace, to be grace, needs the truth for, without truth, we don’t see the need for grace. Grace is meaningless to the person who believes there is no truth which, by thought or deed, we can violate. And truth needs grace, for without it the truth can be harsh and unforgiving and too much to bear.

For the Christian grace is recognizing the distortions of truth that we call sin and acknowledging them to be what they are. And it is also offering hope and redemption in the face of that sin.

Governor Palin is not a Christian hypocrite. No, she has shown us both truth and grace.

Answer to the trivia question: Can you name the three U.S. Presidents who held office in the 20th Century who had their start in elected office at the local level?

1. Jimmy Carter – school board chairman (1950’s, Sumter County, Georgia)
2. 2. Harry Truman – county court judge (equivalent to a county commissioner) (1922, Jackson County, Missouri)
3. Calvin Coolidge – city council (1898, Northampton, Massachusetts)

Copyright 2008 Family Action Council of Tennessee, Inc.
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