Sunday, September 28, 2008

On Sarah Palin (Who else?)

I've been intending to start a blog for a while now, what with my irrepressible frustrations that arise from events and social issues that trouble me. But what really pushed me this time to go through the effort of choosing a template, fonts, colors, title, etc. was something/someone more frustrating than watching The O'Reilly Factor or Hannity's America. The stomach ulcer of whom I speak is, of course, Sarah Palin.

The main problem I have with Palin isn't technically her fault, but makes me resent her nonetheless. It is this: she was picked by McCain as a campaign strategy (and nothing more). It's as if the McCain campaign watched Stephen Colbert's "Make John McCain Exciting" segment and took it as advice. I'll give the Repubs credit for livening up the campaign and making the country associate something besides a corpse-ish rich white guy with their party. But their goal, apparently, does not extend beyond that. They didn't choose her based on her credentials, her ability to help lead, or her readiness to take over should their presidential candidate flop over before his time is served. No, the McCain campaign selected Palin because she was accidentally born a woman in the 20th century (instead of, say, a plantation owner in the antebellum South). I was hoping the American public (even conservatives) would be human enough to see through this gimmick, but she's definitely had a positive impact for McCain.

So I find it interesting that McCain's campaign advisors have been shielding her from media contact. It's very telling that they believe keeping her quiet will actually be better for the campaign than letting her speak freely. After all, they certainly realize it's bad for their image to limit access to Palin, but they also realize she'll kill their chances once everyone gets to know her. I suppose the campaign is happy to let pictures of Palin and her family fly around the media, confirming that 1. She is in fact a woman, and 2. She does in fact exist. I mean, those 2 points alone seem to be enough to influence people to vote for another 4 years of the same old shit.

3 comments:

Lindsay said...

Very true. I do however find it quite racist that the picture you drew of Barack Obama is him playing basketball. He's only half black Jake.

Aaron said...

When I saw you wearing your Che T-shirt I thought to myself, in the words of Jed Clampett, "Someday I am going to have to have a long talk with that boy." When did the cute little Jake that we all knew and loved turn into such a left-wing, and foul-mouthed (yes we read clear down to the bottom) nut?

I agree with you, to a certain extent, about Sarah Palin. It would be tragic if we ended up with a person with little relevant experience in the White House. Luckily, with the Republican ticket there is only a 25% chance of that happening.

kari said...

Don't make play playgound referee next family dinner! A little advice from your sister and seasoned blogger: stick to stories about your pets and charming anecdotes. Don't worry about Aaron, I had a note that read, "crazy right-wind hockey mom" on my fridge the week after the Republican Convention. He tries to convert me too. Although, with me, I think he is having better luck.