Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been credited with transforming the election with an invigorating blend of small-town moxie and conservative principles. The Alaska governor will be barnstorming through the country aboard an Embraer 190 operated by commercial carrier JetBlue. The Embraer 190 would seem a logical choice. With ample room for the candidate, her staff and a bevy of journalists, it’s an efficient and reliable jet designed with the heavy demands of regional airline flights in mind.

Of course, in this tough election season, every decision a candidate makes is put under the microscope. The fact that Palin is flying on a jet built by a foreign manufacturer, Brazilian aerospace conglomerate Embraer, has struck some liberal critics as insensitive to American workers in an industry under threat from overseas competition. Embraer does have a factory in the U.S., at Melbourne International Airport in Florida, however that facility is used for the final assembly of the company’s Phenom 100 and Phenom 300 light jets.

There may be bit of a bad blood between domestic aviation industry and the McCain campaign. Boeing strongly expressed their frustration last March when Senator McCain helped to steer Congress towards awarding a $35 billion contract for the Air Force’s next generation tanker to European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., parent company of Airbus.

Campaign jets have proven to be a popular issue over the course of this election. Eager to appear environmentally conscious, both the Obama and McCain campaigns have purchased carbon-offsets in order to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. McCain, who early in the campaign attracted media scrutiny for flying on his wife’s private jet, now flies on a Boeing 737-400 he has dubbed the “Straight Talk Express.”

Barack Obama has seen his share of jet misfortune. In July, a chartered MD-80 he was flying on was forced into an emergency landing after the plane’s inflatable escape slides deployed while in flight. After switching to a dedicated aircraft, Obama drew the ire of some conservative critics when he painted over the American flag livery on the tail of his Boeing 757 with his campaign logo.