Why Governor Palin is so Controversial

Governor Palin produces a strong reaction from liberals and conservatives alike. There are two reasons for this. She does not fit the stereotype of a strong successful woman. As a matter of fact she is very different and is unlike anything we have ever seen before. More importantly, she is a common woman, a common person, and a reflection of us.

To be sure, Governor Palin does not fit the feminist stereotype. Some people like this new type of leader and others do not. She is a common person who is also an over-achieving mom who has changed the course of history. Unlike most successful women, Palin has a large family, as a matter of fact she has five children. This hockey mom is also a superb politician. Her honesty and compassion allow her to connect with the American People, and she is the elected Governor of Alaska and the former Republican candidate for Vice President.

As a common person, a common woman, she is one of us and a reflection of us. Her success is not our success, but her failures are our failures. We cannot share her success as she is a common woman who has changed the course of history, and you and I are still common folk reading and writing articles about her.

Her failures are our failures. We all have high standards for our work, good morals, and very high ethical standards that we constantly strive to achieve. Most of us have great difficulty achieving our standards and frequently our lives are full of contradictions and failures.

Governor Palin is just like us in that regard. She has experienced some of the same contradictions and dilemmas that you and I face. Governor Palin is against homosexual marriage. Yet her very first act as Governor of Alaska she vetoed legislation to deny state-funded health benefits for gay partners. As a hunter, she loves the great out doors, but is willing to risk the environment to drill for more oil, even in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. She is against earmarks and wasteful government spending, and she fought against the Bridge to Nowhere. As mayor, however, she employed lobbyists to help obtain millions in federal dollars to benefit hr community.

Just like us she also has successes and failures. As a conservative Christian she believes sex is reserved for marriage and supports abstinence-only sex education. Shortly after she was selected as the Republican nominee for Vice-President she announced that her oldest daughter was pregnant out-of-wedlock and would have the baby and get married. Many claimed that she failed as a mother and that her sex education philosophy failed her own daughter.

She also lives up to her standards in serious situations in life, just as we do. Governor Palin is staunchly pro-life. Her fifth child, Trig, has Down syndrome. Fully aware of all the problems the child would have, Sarah Palin gave birth to her son.

(This article is based on Chuck Colson's Forward to the book Sarah Palin A New Kind of Leader, by Joe Hilley. The book is published by Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49530.)