We Can Only Have the Audacity to Hope,...

A BRIGHTER (& 'RIGHT'ER) FUTURE WITH MAC AS PREZ

THERE are profound reasons to believe the McCain-Palin ticket offers a better future for most Americans than the Obama-Biden ticket.

Barack Obama is a very smart and sophisticated liberal who will appoint activist, left-wing judges to the courts. The Ninth Circuit Court ruled that saying "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. Imagine this anti-religious extremism spreading through the rest of the court system in a wave of Obama appointments.

John McCain can be expected to appoint judges who respect the vital role that religion has histori cally played in American public life.

Beyond the courts, Obama would strengthen and expand opportunities for trial lawyers to sue. McCain would focus on litigation reform to reduce the number of lawsuits.

In a bad economy, McCain would focus on economic growth and job creation. Obama has promised to focus on "spreading your wealth."

Watching the ACORN organization come under investigation in more than a dozen states for voter fraud and illegality, it is sobering to imagine what Obama, a former ACORN trainer and community organizer, would do to give even more of our tax money to this hard-left, corrupt organization. It is also unlikely an Obama Justice Department would prosecute any of the donor-fraud and voter-fraud allegations that are rapidly building up.

Far from protecting our liberty here at home, an Obama administration will join its union allies in stripping us of our right to a secret ballot when voting on whether to join a union, a right that protects us from being browbeaten and coerced by labor organizers who wish to unionize. John McCain can be counted on to protect that right.

Union dominance under Obama will make it much harder to pass school-choice legislation, enact merit pay for good teachers or dismiss bad teachers. The William Ayers connection is a useful warning about the left-wing education propaganda likely to spread through our schools to brainwash our children under an Obama administration.

The recent stories about Obama's friendship with apologists for terrorism are a reminder that we really do not know how radical an Obama administration would be. We do know he has promised to meet with every dictator and anti-American regime. McCain's record on these issues is far sounder.

Finally, on the vice presidency, it is revealing that no national network TV interviewer asked Gov. Sarah Palin about her experiences as governor; her experience writing an $11 billion state budget; her experience leading the 29,000 employees of the Alaskan state government; her experience negotiating a big deal with ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and the rest of Big Oil; her success in giving the money from that negotiation to the people of Alaska as a $1,300 tax cut for every man, woman and child in the state; or her experience in negotiating a natural-gas pipeline that is the biggest civil-construction project in North America, and which three former governors failed to get done.

Contrast the elite media's refusal to ask about Gov. Palin's genuine achievements with their equally clear refusal to pursue Sen. Joe Biden when he has been just plain wrong. The most comical example was Biden's claim that we could go with him to Katie's restaurant to learn about the problems of the middle class. Barely any attention was given to the fact that Katie's restaurant closed in 1986. No elite reporter asked whether Biden had not learned about the middle class since 1986 or whether he is simply out of touch with reality. Between Biden and Palin, I would take Palin any day.

For these reasons and more, the McCain-Palin ticket would lead to a much better future for America than Obama-Biden.

Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, is the author of "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less."