VP Debate - Weakest Trait: What is your weakest trait?...

GOV. PALIN: My experience as an executive will be put to good

use as a mayor and business owner and oil and gas regulator and then

as governor of a huge state, a huge energy-producing state that is

accounting for much progress towards getting our nation energy

independence and that's extremely important.

But it wasn't just that experience tapped into, it was my

connection to the heartland of America: being a mom, being a -- one

who is very concerned about a son in the war, about a special-needs

child, about kids heading off to college -- how are we going to pay

those tuition bills? -- about times and Todd and our marriage and our

past where we didn't have health insurance. And we know what other

Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and

try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health

care. We've been there also. So that connection was important.

But even more important is that world view that I share with John

McCain, that world view that says that America is a nation of

exceptionalism and we are to be that shining city on a hill, as

President Reagan so beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and

that we are unapologetic, here. We are not perfect as a nation, but

together we represent a perfect ideal, and that is democracy and

tolerance and freedom and equal rights, those things that we stand for

that we can be put to good use as a force for good in this world.

John McCain and I share that. And you combine all that with

being a team with the only track record of making a -- really, a

difference in where we've been and r