I received an email today from a relative berating Sarah Palin for hunting wolves from airplanes, and was urged to not vote for McCain/Palin because of this. (There are a lot of emotional Democrats in my family: I think that I am the only Republican, unless someone is keeping their mouth shut…)The link to the video is here:

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund video

Other than the obvious issues related to this sort of email, curiousity got the better of me and I searched around for a more balanced view of this. I found this rebuttal:

Kswatcher’s Weblog

Although I abhor such hunting, especially for predators (my wife and I are dog breeders, so I have a soft spot for wolves and other wild canines) I suspected that there might be more behind this than was included in the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund video. There was…

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After hearing the convention speech of Sarah Palin, it slowly became
apparent to me that if (God willing) John McCain is elected President,
he will be a transitional President, bridging the gap between the “old”
Republican Party of the ’80s and ’90s, and the “new” Republican Party
of the future. Sarah Palin is just one representative of the new public
face of the Republican Party, along with Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty,
and others yet to be seen on the national scene. All of these “new”
Republicans are of the post-baby boomer generations, and as such, are
untainted by the turmoil, effluvia, and mentality of the the late
’60s and ’70s.

By his choice of Sarah Palin as Vice-President, he has
opened the door for these new faces of the Republic Party to be seen, in
spite of the MSM. If he can continue to pull these sorts of politicians
into the government once he is elected, I think it is possible to start
a real transformation of the Federal government, that can really start
to take off once McCain’s term is complete, if all goes well.

It appears that this “new” Republican Party will tend to be more socially
conservative; more fiscally responsible; less tolerant of the corrosive
Left (socialists, communists and their ilk); more overtly religious
(but at the same time not judgmental or “preachy”); more willing to
identify and target true evil in the world; more appreciative
of the uniqueness and greatness of the United States; and overall just
more like the bulk of us “normal” people. In a word: conservative.

I think I now have more reasons to be optimistic for the direction our country
now has the opportunity to take. Now, if only people will sit back and
think before they pull the lever in the November election…