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Bill Whittle writes at National Review Online on Sarah Palin, writing an article with which I'm approximately 99.34% in agreement.

Go read the whole article.  But here, and below (click the Read More) are tidbits:

. . . John McCain . . . wasn’t my first choice (Fred) or my second (Rudy), . . .

And so — prior to this week — all we had was a grim determination to vote against a dangerous, socialized vision of the future. We were portrayed — largely accurately — as old, tired, out-of-touch, out of ideas, out of candidates . . . too white, too male, too square. It doesn’t matter how true or false that caricature was. That was the narrative, and there was enough of it that fit.

And then the earthquake came.

More by Whittle:

Sarah Palin is the anti-Obama: not a victim, not a poser, not riding a wave but rather swimming upstream — and most of all, not having run for president her entire life. She is the first politician I have ever seen — and I include Ronnie in this, God bless him — who strikes everyone who sees her as an actual, real, ordinary person. Immediately came T-shirts saying I AM SARAH PALIN. HER STORY IS MY STORY. There is a lot of Obama swag out there, too, but none of it says HIS STORY IS MY STORY. Hold that thought till November 5.

. . . I think the magic of Sarah Palin speaks to a belief that so many of us share: the sense that we personally know five people in our immediate circle who would make a better president than the menagerie of candidates the major parties routinely offer. Sarah Palin has erupted from this collective American Dream — the idea that, given nothing but classic American values like hard work, integrity, and tough-minded optimism you can actually do what happens in the movies: become Leader of the Free World, the President of the United States of America. (Or, well, you know, vice president.)

. . .

John McCain got me to believe tonight what I never really believed about him before: he is serious about changing Washington. He is serious about getting the GOP back to basics. John McCain wants to repair the brand.

. . .

And a final thing: I had heard before that John McCain had been beaten in prison, and I admired him for it. But when he said he had been broken . . . I gasped. When this sometimes cocky, arrogant old man told me he had once been a cocky, arrogant young man until he was “blessed by hardship,” until he had been broken and remade — and in that remaking discovered a love of country so fierce and pure that even as a patriot myself I will never approach it — well, in that moment John McCain won my heart, to add to the respect and admiration he had already had.

If you want to understand how many of us feel about McCain/Palin, you would do well to read Bill Whittle's article.  Even if you're behind Obama, but consider yourself a person who can still be engaged by argument and reason, you'll take a look at Whittle's article, if nothing else to see what motivates those on the other side of the political fence.

It will be no surprise to regular readers here that was planning to vote for McCain out of a weary sense of duty--to stand against the continuing encroachment of the smiley-faced Marxism/fascism upon our country.  I still stand against that, regardless of whether it's the Democratic Party version, or the Republican Party version.

But this year, this election, it is McCain/Palin who offers to me the best hope of standing against the march of communitarianism/collectivism and standing for individual freedom and liberty.  And finally, they offer me real hope--not just the usual hazy, knee-jerk, cliched Republican rhetoric.  Change is indeed in the air, and it's a change that I can believe in.  At last.

I would respect a serious argument about why I'm wrong.  But I won't respect--can not respect--the uncritical near-worship of Barack Obama and the resulting holy jihad against any who would stand against him.

I am Sarah Palin.