I think that this is what Palin supporters see in her that makes us like her so much:

Todd was working at his oil-field job on the North Slope, and Palin and her father had been fishing on Bristol Bay. “It was the toughest work I’ve ever done, and it wasn’t only hard, it was dangerous,” [Palin’s father] Chuck says. At the end of the run, they had to get the boat on a trailer amid crashing surf. As cold, metallic-sheened waves tossed the trawler around, Chuck quailed.

“I’m not doing that,” he said.

“Get out of the way,” Palin said. “I’ll do it.”

World politics, to some extent, can be taught.  That is, after all, the point of my (useless) poli sci degree.  Character can’t.  And while a good president can surround himself/herself with very knowledgeable advisers, they can’t really borrow the courage to make a tough decision.