The presidential tickets

I watched Sarah Palin's speech last night. I agree with her on some issues, disagree on others, but overall I thought she gave a great speech, is clearly comfortable in her skin, and knows what she stands for.

I think this is going to be an interesting race. We have an interesting matchup. None of the candidates is scary (assuming you ignore the blogosphere's various scare-tactic rumors). Palin is inexperienced, Obama is inexperienced. McCain is experienced, Biden is experienced (although I confess I find Biden to be singularly uninspiring.) 3 senators, who are notoriously bad at executive skills, and one governor, which is historically the best job to have prior to being president. Palin seems to have a bit of a history of holding grudges against those who cross her politically, which I believe to be one of the big problems with the current Bush administration, and that gives me a little pause, especially since her politics are a lot more right-wing than I am generally comfortable with.

I think Obama is the best "leader" of the bunch, in terms of sheer charisma, followed by Palin. I trust McCain more on foreign policy, frankly. He's stuck to his guns on Iraq, and whether or not you think the war was a mistake, the fact is that security has been improving and that's a good thing we should be building on.

I confess that I have not yet made up my mind for whom I'm going to vote. Usually it's a no-brainer for me - in most elections, the prospect of one candidate's presidency is so frightening that I vote for the other candidate. But in this one nobody scares me at that level. It's about policy and philosophy, and with both sides there are policies where I say "right on" and policies where I shake my head in bewilderment as to what on earth they're thinking.

Which is how it should be. I have to make a real choice based on real issues. I'm looking forward to it.