♪２）ペイリン旋風！実感

ペイリン演説　続き

Track is the eldest of our five children.
In our family, it's two boys and three girls in between - my strong and kind-hearted
daughters Bristol, Willow, and Piper.

And in April, my husband Todd and I welcomed our littlest one into the world, a perfectly
beautiful baby boy named Trig.

From the inside, no family ever seems typical.
That's how it is with us.
Our family has the same ups and downs as any other ... the same challenges and the same joys.
Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge.
And children with special needs inspire a special love.

To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message:
For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters.
I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.

Todd is a story all by himself.
He's a lifelong commercial fisherman ... a production operator in the oil fields of
Alaska's North Slope ... a proud member of the United Steel Workers' Union ... and world
champion snow machine racer.

Throw in his Yup'ik Eskimo ancestry, and it all makes for quite a package.
We met in high school, and two decades and five children later he's still my guy.

My Mom and Dad both worked at the elementary school in our small town.
And among the many things I owe them is one simple lesson: that this is America, and every
woman can walk through every door of opportunity.
My parents are here tonight, and I am so proud to be the daughter of Chuck and Sally Heath.

Long ago, a young farmer and habber-dasher from Missouri followed an unlikely path to the
vice presidency.
A writer observed: "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and
dignity." I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.
I grew up with those people.
They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America ... who grow our food, run our
factories,
and fight our wars.
They love their country, in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America.

I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town.
I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the P.T.A. I love those hockey moms.
you know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick. So I signed
up for P.T.A .because I wanted to make my kids' public education even better.

And when I ran for city council, I didn't need focus groups and voter profiles because
I knew those voters, and knew their families, too.
Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.

And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience,
let me explain to them what the job involves.

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have
actual responsibilities.

I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who
lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly
they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening.

We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in
San Francisco.

As for my running mate, you can be certain that wherever he goes, and whoever is listening,
John McCain is the same man.

I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment.

And I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing
of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that
reason alone.

But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to
Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country.

Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with
the right people.
Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests.
The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave
this nation better than we found it.

No one expects us to agree on everything.
But we are expected to govern with integrity, good will, clear convictions, and ...
a servant's heart.
I pledge to all Americans that I will carry myself in this spirit as vice president of
the United States.

This was the spirit that brought me to the governor's office, when I took on the old
politics as usual in Juneau ... when I stood up to the special interests, the lobbyists,
big oil companies, and the good-old boys network.