Having just watched Sarah Palin being introduced by John McCain and having listened and watched as Sarah Palin accepted the nomination and introduced herself and her family to America, I have a couple of personal notes to make. Both my wife and I have been disillusioned since May, when the reality became that John McCain and Barack Obama were all that we had to choose from come November.

Unlike many of our democrat counterparts, we agreed that we couldn't vote for the party candidate, simply because that was who had been given the nomination. Nor could we simply hold our noses and pull the lever come November. As the months have passed it never has been either a question of supporting or voting for Barack Obama. His notions of both the future of this country and Americanism in general, became clearly separate and distinct from what we see as right for this country months ago.

And over the past month in particular, it seemed that the only options left for us and many other conservatives, was to either not vote at all in the presidential race, or to rise to the collective spirit of other kindred souls and vote solely against what we all see clearly as the absolute wrong man and the wrong message for this country.

As I watched and listened to Sarah Palin's speech a few minutes ago, I was watching and listening intently to what she had to say. But I was also watching my wife. And within mere minutes of Sarah Palin speaking, I could see the tears welling up and the barest hint of a smile crossing my wife's lips, as she remained focused on Sarah Palin and her words.

My wife frequently looked over at me during the acceptance speech. Not to simply seek either confirmation or validation from my eyes, but more so to see if I had noticed her previous considerations and sentiments slipping more and more as Sarah Palin continued speaking. By the time that the speech had ended, my wife was visibly teary eyed and as the pundits immediately began to dissect what they had just witnessed in Dayton, I looked over at my wife and asked her a simple question. "Who are you going to vote for?"

My wife is 47 years old and in 25 years of marriage, I have acquired the ability to read her thoughts from her facial expressions and she knows this. Just as she knows both her own and my thoughts on politics, Americanism and the world. My wife looked back at me and tried to couch her reply...."well I am far more inclined to vote for him now than I was." Which told me instantly, that she has now made her decision.

And in all honesty, I have to admit that after seeing and hearing Sarah Palin, I have also made mine. I find myself now in the unique position of at last having something and someone to vote for in this election, but more importantly I am now able to look past the immediate present and see the future that is on the horizon. Those who remember honestly my remarks of the last several months concerning John McCain, know that I have held a number of opposing issues with the man and I have maintained that while I would not vote for Obama, I could not bring myself to vote for McCain. I am a conservative, not a republican loyalist. I don't vote party. I vote my principles first and foremost and the two parties can be damned after that IMO.

But what John McCain did by choosing Sarah Palin over the likes of Romney and others today, was to finally reach out to those of us, who like so many of those on the other side, felt that we had been left behind by both party's parade into November. And you can bet, that the same thing was felt by millions of supporters of Hillary Clinton and those on the other side of the isle, who also felt that they were being railroaded into supporting a party platform and candidate who was not their own preference and who does not represent the best of their own ideals and principles.

There is a new day dawning across America this morning. The liberal induced fog has been cleared away and people like myself can once again see that shining city on a hill. And while John McCain may be as old as Moses and not capable of making the return journey there with us, he has given us someone who knows the way and who many will gladly follow into the future of conservatism and the party that has all but lost it's way in representing those principles to the faithful in America. Those of us who never lost the vision, now see both hope and opportunity for both themselves and their country.

Semper Fidelis!