KEY POINTS:
What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?
One is a well-turned-out babe, a spunk and, let's be frank, a pretty sexy piece of eye candy.
The other kills her own food.
After all the sanctimonious, highly chauvinistic and patronising columns slating the qualifications of the Alaskan Governor to be the Republican's vice-presidential nominee candidate, the above gag had lethal cut-through, deflating the pomposity of US pundits and editorialists who had written the 44-year-old mom-of-five off well before she electrified the Republican convention with a speech that hit all the conservative touchstones.
Palin's forthright address to the Republican convention was a glorious respite after weeks of watching the Obama presidential machine wallow in a welter of visionary cliches that boil down to little more than a return to Big Government and hugging US enemies close. Big mistake.
In Palin, the Republicans have their own smiling assassin who adds authenticity to the view that, as a result of the surge, US troops in Iraq have now brought victory in sight.
While Obama indulges in breast-beating about the international opprobrium President George W. Bush courted by authorising the Iraq invasion in the first place, Palin prepares to farewell her own son to join the troops.
This telling family story underlines, in a way that Obama cannot, that Palin is a heartland American, one of the many small-town parents who have farewelled loved ones to fight our wars, following in the tracks of her running mate John McCain in Vietnam.
New Zealand elites tend to scoff at this syndrome.
Palin's messages are refracted through a liberal but horrendously politically correct lens that views the US as a war criminal for invading Iraq and would rather the next administration packs its tents ASAP and dog tails it back to Washington.
The reality is New Zealand does not have a viable defence force that is equipped to meet "higher threat situations" as was brought home this week in a cringe-making official report.
This country will be reliant on the US superpower to come to our aid if the notion that we live in a benign strategic environment is ever seriously challenged.
The Palin doctrine that America must be strong in a dangerous world is one of realism. New Zealand is in no position to take a higher moral ground when we so shamefully neglect our own interests.
Her underlying messages were stealthy. She's proud of America in good times and bad (Obama isn't). She's an average hockey mom (Obama is an intellectual elitist).
She's putting government on the side of the people (Obama isn't).
If this is dog whistle politics, it's something that we could do with hearing a lot more of here.
But unfortunately New Zealand's conservative leader John Key would rather indulge his crush on Obama, than directly mix it by contesting Helen Clark with a clear agenda of his own.
Palin is pushing an energy independent future for the US - no longer at the mercy of foreign suppliers, producing more oil and gas at home.
Laying pipelines, building more nuclear plants, creating jobs with clean coals and investing in a raft of newer energy alternatives which will be brought by American ingenuity and produced by American workers.
Key's spokespeople deny New Zealanders that same clear choice by shrouding policies in global warming cant. Who says Kiwis would rather save the world by opting for policies that drive our emitting businesses offshore rather than put our economic future first?
Key has yet so say so, yet the gap is there.
In his bones, the National leader is more aligned with the McCain/Palin world view, but he lacks the courage to make the case for policy clarity.
Take government spending. Key has "reduced headcount" during his days as a top Merrill Lynch manager.
But he shies away from extrapolating those experiences to the manner in which he will tackle government spending by advocating a sinking-lid policy rather than cutting non-productive departments and jobs.
Unlike Palin, he has not made the case for why National is really on the taxpayer's side.
