We were sitting at the kitchen table over breakfast, talking about the election. Spread out across plates of pancakes and syrup was the large, unfolded “Official General Election Sample Ballot.” Two of them, in fact.

My kids were more interested than I had hoped they’d be. But their fascination extended past the first two familiar columns, onto names they had never heard.

“Who are all these people running for president?,” they asked, with some amazement.

We tried to read the tiny print delineating party associations, smaller than anything my reading glasses could decipher. And then they noticed the write-in section.

“You can just type in anybody’s name?” And then they reminded me of a time when I’d threatened to do just that, especially when my first choice finally lost his bid to get the Republican nomination.

It’s a big election we’re having. And I’ve followed it for so long, it’s hard to imagine it’s almost over. I’ve followed issues, learned about policies, read websites, watched news clips, pored over interviews, compared plans, and prayed much. I’ve gotten involved to a deeper level than I ever had before. And now it’s here.

It’s historic, to be sure. The first African-American president – or the first woman vice president. And beyond that – values and ideas and programs and futures.

The economy. Bailouts. Supreme Court Justices. War. Taxes. Polls, polls, and more polls.

It all gets a little dizzying after awhile, even for a political junkie.

I thought of friends and family members, homeschool friends, other Christians, neighbors, and people whose signs declare their intentions. Like the old-time joke about placing an order in a Chinese restaurant, some want Column 1, some want Column 2, some want Column 4 or 5, some want Column 10, and a few even want that mysterious “Write-In Column.” I’ve heard or read their rationale, their arguments, their positions. I respect their decisions, even the ones with which I strongly disagree.

After reading more of the sample ballot, we prayed as a family over this election – for John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and Joe Biden. We prayed for their spouses – Cindy, Michelle, Todd, and Jill. We prayed for their children, too, for as many of the names as I know. And after our “Amen,” I realized with the last bit of certainty just who would receive my vote tomorrow.

Trig.

His name is not on the ballot – not directly. He is the little baby boy of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. And he has Down syndrome.

I want Trig to win this election.

More than my views on the economy, more than my stand on the war, more than my concern about the next nominees for the Supreme Court, more than anything else, I realize that there is one issue that rises above and beyond all the others. It’s the one that the framers placed first in that string of inalienable rights worth risking everything for:

Life.

Thanks to increasing medical technology and decreasing values of the preciousness of each human being, there are fewer and fewer Trig Palins in this country. I want Trig Palin to be seen by this nation – learning to walk, starting to talk, living out a normal little-kid life…as normal as any world leader’s child’s can be.

Governor Sarah Palin knew this little boy would have Down syndrome. The usual pro-life philosophy calls tests like amniocentesis ‘search and destroy.’ But then, Sarah is not anyone’s definition of usual. She chose the testing – and then chose life.

I wonder what those first few nights were like when she tried to get to sleep, wondering what to do about this daunting piece of news. She has said she was sad, and a little confused at first. I’m sure she prayed.

She said in an interview that she didn’t blink when Senator John McCain asked her to be his running mate. In the end, she didn’t blink when God asked her to mother Trig Palin.

Trig’s name means ‘strength.’ I think John McCain showed strength, and courage, when he served our country for five and a half years as a Prisoner Of War. Sarah Palin showed strength when she determined that Trig would have a normal life, protected from the culture of death, and built up by the confidence that he is perfect, blessed, and created by a loving Heavenly Father.

Because John McCain chose Sarah, because Sarah chose Trig, I choose them.

Tomorrow, I will vote – proudly, and prayerfully – for the name not seen but profoundly represented on my ballot:

Trig Palin.

for the least of these

This is beautifully written. Thank you. I've voted for it, and I've shared it with many friends.