Why Her 'Servant's Heart' Matters

Sarah Palin has the “power of the normal,” and she has the Democrats rightfully running scared, writes Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal. The mother of 5 with her hockey-mom jokes and imperfect voice is "vividly genuine," a trait that helped her be the first to do any real damage to Obama in a speech. More importantly, her appeal for old-school conservatism—not the watered-down modern version—"was so old it seemed new, and startling." It may well be enough to change the race.

"The speech was, in its way, a call so tender it made grown-ups weep on the floor," writes Noonan. "Government is too big, Obama will 'grow it', Congress spends too much and he'll spend 'more.' It was for low taxes, for small business, for the private sector, for less regulation, for governing with 'a servant's heart'; it was pro-small town values, and implicitly but strongly pro-life." (More Sarah Palin stories.)