Tom Horne, Arizona superintendent of public instruction, is a delegate to the Republican National Convention.

Other articles by Tom Horne:

McCain's message: Service, sacrifice Arts education helps create well-rounded students McCain, Palin get it: Earmarks encourage waste Third Annual State of Education Removing the incentive is the wrong thing to do

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ST. PAUL, Minn.

Many of us got on buses Wednesday to the Minneapolis Convention Center (the convention is in the Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul's convention center) to a cavernous room with lots of tables set up for us to help prepare packages for flood victims. It was impressively well-organized.

Rudy Giuliani is the most entertaining public speaker I've seen. He has humor, passion, logic and substance. He provided a list of Barack Obama's changes of position and said, "If I were Joe Biden, I'd want to get that V.P. thing in writing."

Everyone who has been to a sports event knows how the emotion of the crowd is contagious. The most fun chant for me was "drill, baby, drill" used by three separate speakers. There are probably enough Democrats who would vote for domestic drilling so that it would pass, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi probably will not allow a vote. This appears to me to be wildly irrational.

Arguing that what we need is conservation and renewable sources is a false dichotomy: We must do both that AND domestic drilling.

We are sending almost $700 billion a year overseas — the largest transfer of wealth in human history — and it is going to our enemies: Iran, Venezuela, Russia, who will do us harm with it. With all the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, there has been not one major spill.

The star Wednesday night was Sarah Palin. The attacks on her family life have been, as Mike Huckabee said, tacky as a costume change at a Madonna concert. She gave a magnificent speech. There was resonance for me in her decision to proceed with her pregnancy with a Down Syndrome child. We had a Down Syndrome child who died at the age of 3 in heart surgery. In her three years, she added a lot, and we learned a lot, thinking about what is important in life.