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My Fellow Freepers,

I am selecting a sleeper or wildcard as the McCain VP selection: the former US Senator from IL, REP. Peter G. Fitzgerald.

Below is an excellent article that I offer as exhibit # 1.

Retiring Senator Stood Up for Principles
Thursday , February 12, 2004

By Radley Balko

When a long-serving politician retires, we’re often treated to windbag editorials from newspapers and columnists about the virtue of public service, and how the latest retiring politician contributed to it.

Never mind that one of the ways one becomes a long-serving politician is by building up constituencies by doling out pork and patronage, and that many long-serving politicians spend their careers lusting after the perks and privileges of power.

When Congress adjourns this year, Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (search), R-Ill., will retire after just one term. He’s retiring because his own party has turned on him and promised to run a primary candidate against him. That’s because this particular senator decided that while he was in office he’d be his own man and vote his own conscience. He wouldn’t be a lackey for his party, he wouldn’t vote pork home to his state, and he wouldn’t do what the special interests who run his party told him to do. And that got him into trouble.

When Fitzgerald announced his retirement last April, he’d already been the scorn of his home state’s newspaper columnists and editorial boards. The Republican Party — both state and national — was elated to see him go. The Washington Times ran an editorial gloating over his departure. No one, it seems, would be shedding any tears over Peter Fitzgerald’s retirement. That’s too bad, because we need a heck of a lot more Peter Fitzgeralds in Washington.

(end of excerpt)

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,111159,00.html