I believe Gov. Sarah Palin ought to help John McCain with the Republican Party’s conservative base because she has a lock on two things vital to conservatism: guns and God.

Guns because she is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and grew up hunting moose with her father.

God because she is an evangelical Christian who once suggested teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools and when she was in high school headed something called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

You can’t get much more conservative than that. I saw in one biography of her that she led her basketball team in prayers before games, and that’s something I have always enjoyed – watching athletes pray before games. I would love to hear what they say. Please, God, give us the strength to beat the daylights out of the other team? If the other team is praying the same, I don’t know how God decides, but then I don’t have a degree in theology.

As for hunting moose, that strikes me about like hunting cows, if you have ever seen a moose in the wild. But I suppose it’s the idea that counts. Hunting shows that you’re a red-blooded American who treasures his Second Amendment right to tote a gun rather than some bird-watching tree-hugger with a solar panel on his roof.

She even rides snowmobiles, and is married to a champion snowmobile racer.

I bet Barack Obama doesn’t ride a snowmobile. I bet he never shot a moose, either. He claims to believe in God, but did he ever lead a basketball team in prayer before a game?

No, as things stand now, McCain-Palin win on guns, win on God, and win on snowmobiles too. It was an inspired choice on McCain’s part, in my humble view.