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By Lloyd Mackey
 SARAH Palin has our attention this week, along with word that the leaders of Canada's political parties ignored last week's OttawaWatch tongue-in-cheek hint that it would be quite in order for Parliament to run until October, 2009.
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Palin, the spitfire governor of Alaska, is Republican John McCain's choice for vice-president. And one might expect that she has a little more reason to pay attention to Canada than any of those politicians in the 48 states to the south.
Undoubtedly, she was flying for several hours over our fair nation, in order to get from her home turf to Dayton, Ohio, where McCain introduced her.
And, perhaps more to the point, she has indicated backing for a Canadian pipeline proposal for shipping Alaska energy resources to the rest of the United States.
Evangelical Christian leaders, while surprised at McCain's choosing her, expressed strong support, even when they learned that her oldest and unmarried daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant.
As it turns out, that news provided an opportunity for Palin to articulate a very contemporary form of evangelical faith. She is a bona fide "feminist for life", which means, among other things, that on the political side, she successfully fought off the Alaska "old boys' club" to clean up that state's apparently endemic corruption. On the social side, she is unabashedly for life, to the point of keeping and loving her infant son, Trig, who was diagnosed, in the womb, with Down's Syndrome.
Then came word of Bristol's pregnancy.
Evangelicals, a few years ago, would have sent the young woman away in shame, to give birth in a distant "home for unwed mothers," with a set of adoptive parents waiting in the wings.
Palin is "proud" that her daughter is choosing to keep the child and marry the father, an 18-year-old high school hockey player apparently named Levi Johnston.
There will be many opportunities to compare Palin with Hillary Clinton. Both are avowed feminists, one coming from the choice side of the spectrum, the other from the life side.
I leave the consideration of Palin's emergence with this thought regarding her feminism: It means that she is likely able and willing to make decisions independent of those three "p's" - the partner, pastor or physician. The sometimes oppressive influence of these categories of people, especially when they were male, is what has often shaped the thinking of the Sarah Palins of the world.
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As of now, it looks like a federal election on October 14, 2008, rather than October 19, 2009.
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Having articulated for the latter in last week's OttawaWatch, I have to say that if the writ is dropped this weekend, it will not really be a surprise.
I spoke of collaborative governance and opposition and, as it happens, that is what has occurred. All three opposition leaders, in effect, collaborated not to keep the government alive until 2009.
So I will undertake to help my publisher sell the last few hundred copies of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance. That means I will likely be in southwestern Ontario and the prairies some time in the next few weeks, and possibly in other parts of Canada as well.
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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
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The culture wars continue
Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska is not your typical governor. And she is now a very atypical vice-presidential candidate. Yet her selection foreshadows an American election that will run along the well-worn grooves of the culture wars; 2008 will not be that different from 2004 and 2000.
Father Raymond J. De Souza, National Post, August 30
Taking a tactical cue from the Republicans
Armchair politicians who are perplexed by why the federal Tories sometimes play up divisive social conservative issues such as opposition to same-sex marriage need look no further than today's poll. It's all about shoring up the party's core vote.
Brian Laghi, Globe and Mail, September 2
Palin's drive for family values hits a bump
John McCain did not pick Sarah Palin as his running mate because she was the best candidate around. He picked her because she was a young and photogenic conservative woman with a family-values trump card. That would be her fifth child, Trig, whom she carried to term at age 44 even though she knew he had Down syndrome. What better bona fides are there for an anti-abortion absolutist? John McCain figured that she would mobilize the sullen evangelical base - and it's worked. Since Friday, more than $10-million in fresh donations has flooded into the campaign coffers.
Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail, September 2
Forget the women's vote. Sarah Palin is about the evangelical vote
The devout, anti-abortion, gun-supporting former beauty queen with five children was picked to shore up the white evangelical vote because it makes up 25 per cent of the U.S. population. Securing it was essential for George W. Bush in the past two elections. See the excellent polling by the respected Pew Research organization.
Douglas Todd, The Search, Vancouver Sun, September 3
The Man From O.P.R.A.H.
Forget Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin: The most influential woman in this U. S. election campaign is a television host
Father Raymond J. De Souza, National Post, September 4
September 4/2008
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