No sooner had John McCain announced his pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, then the Obama campaign and other Democrats began their assault on her. While predictable, the fierceness of the initial assault was pretty strong. The Obama campaign’s first reaction was that she was an “inexperienced mayor of a town 9,000”. Realizing that they had just slandered the people in the small towns of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and other states that will decide this election, they quickly issued a more gracious statement.

You would think that after calling denizens of small towns “bitter and clinging to their guns and religion,” Obama and his people would be more sensitive to these voters. But that is how they truly feel about these folks and they can’t hide it.

Our own Barbara Boxer called her a “dangerous choice”. Dangerous? Barbara Boxer sitting on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is dangerous.

Why the harsh reaction? They are scared.

They are scared because they fear the woman who will break the glass ceiling will be a conservative Republican not a liberal Democrat. And they are pulling out the weapons they have used for years to try and discredit any woman or African American who is not “their kind of woman or African American”. Their kind meaning liberal Democrats. Anyone else is not acceptable. Voters should be reminded of Senator Biden’s shameful treatment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings in 1991.

They also fear that the very people they are trying to court in the old Appalachian Trail area of Ohio Pennsylvania and West Virginia, which is populated by the descendants of the Protestant Scots-Irish who settled the area and the Eastern European Catholics who came later to work the coal mines and steel mills. As well as the union households of the automobile industry of Michigan, who might prefer a maverick war hero and a “can do” reformer to an urbane urbanite and a long winded career politician.

The combined real world of Biden and Obama is zero and their understanding of those they hope to lead is even less. Joe Biden and the mainstream media will talk about him being the “scrappy kid from Scranton” but he hasn’t lived in Scranton since he was a child and never worked in a mill or a mine. Barack Obama has absolutely no claim nor understanding of these folks. I don’t think he has ever gotten his hands dirty doing any real job. Sarah Palin and her husband ran a commercial fishing operation and her husband is an actual card carrying member of the United Steelworkers union.

She can actually hunt and shoot and I bet she knows how to bowl! And unlike John Kerry, who dressed up in camouflage in 2004 to hunt geese, she would carry her own kill, pluck it, gut it and cook it.

Experience and toughness? Governor Palin had the steel in her spine to take on the whole Republican political establishment of Alaska. She did not care if the corruption came from members of her own party, she was going to rip it up root and branch, and that is exactly what she did.

Has Barack Obama ever challenged his patrons in the Democratic Party of Chicago and the corrupt political machine that runs that city? Never. Not once. He was more than happy to hang out with 60’s radical William Ayers, convicted felon Tony Rezko and the hate-spewing Reverend Wright as long as it furthered his political career. Quite a contrast.

Democrats say that Democratic women won’t vote for someone who is pro-life. Don’t bet on that. Views on abortion have been evolving over the years and Obama’s comments and votes on the issue are more radical than most Americans are comfortable with. And in Sarah Palin you have a woman who has actually made the difficult choice.

Imagine in their debate when the abortion issue comes up and you can bet the mainstream media will ask the question. Biden will say he believes in a woman’s right to choose. My guess is her answer will be something like," I am glad you feel that way Senator Biden because I actually had to make that choice and if you are truly "pro-choice" you should respect mine. My religious beliefs tell me that abortion is wrong, just like your religion teaches it is wrong. The difference between us is that I adhere to my beliefs and the tenets of my faith.”

But the biggest fear that will keep Democrats awake over the next 65 days will be that, if Governor Palin becomes Vice President, there will be an alternative conservative narrative in American public and political life to the feminist viewpoint of what makes a successful woman. Their carefully crafted narrative has been with us since the woman’s movement began back in the 70’s and they can’t allow a pro-life, conservative woman to be in such a high profile position. Four years of Vice President Palin would give girls and young women a completely different role model than the Hollywood celebrities and radical feminists have envisioned and it scares them.

When I first saw a picture of Governor Palin early Friday morning on The Drudge Report, she was dressed in her commercial fishing gear with a ball cap and a big smile holding up a huge salmon she had just caught. I said to myself, there is a woman who not only can hold her own with the big boys, but can also best them as she has already proven in reforming Alaska’s government. The closest Barack Obama has been to a fresh salmon like that is at the Whole Foods store where Michelle Obama shops for that expensive arugula.