SARAH PALIN, SARAH PALIN, SARAH PALIN AND THE DANGERS OF A DESPERATE PARTY

This photo says it all.  I took it yesterday, on our second Sunday canvassing for Obama in Virginia.  When I got home I decided to review the stats for this blog and discovered that no post has drawn either the traffic or comments as those I’ve written about Sarah Palin.  Friends tell me the same is true of theirs.  I don’t think it’s brilliant writing that’s doing it.  Sarah Palin has captured a large chunk of this presidential campaign as well as either the imagination or the rage (depending on perspective) of many American voters.

The Tina Fey stuff is funny, and effective, as I’ve mentioned before.   The mean stuff is plenty mean.  The "middle-class hockey mom" stuff is more effective than I wish it were, especially since the Palin family is worth over $2M and they made close to $200,000 last year.  None of this matters as much as it should.  She draws huge crowds.  She’s cute.  Those who support her either believe she is a wonder of accessibility and straight talk or have twisted themselves like pretzels to find reasons to justify her presence.  For me, at least, it’s kind of sad. 

What makes so many people prefer a less-educated, less-experienced candidate with a limited academic past, no curiosity or sense of exploration, untrammeled ambition and not much of a history over far more capable, experienced leadership?   I remember when I was a kid and my mother’s adored Adlai Stevenson ran for president in 1952 and 1956, people called him an egghead, he was accused of being too cold and not able to connect to voters.  And some analysts have compared him to Obama – two Illinois candidates too smart for the room. 

I don’t see it.  Obama appears to me far looser and more accessible- and more well-rounded in experience and education – and he’s younger and more available to young voters; Stevenson was a different man at a very different time and he was running against the man who, at least partially, won World War II.  Even so, the question really is, how far have we evolved since then?  AND how much have we learned from voting for the guy we’d "rather have a beer with" when that guy was George W Bush?  AND in times so very dangerous that by the time each post is replaced at the top of the que, markets around the world have gone down once more and international tensions risen – will we still, as a country, opt for the "mavericky mom" who is not, at least on paper and on the stump, capable of understanding, much less solving, our problems?  (OH and that guy who’s running with her…..)

As I write this, Palin, just introduced by Joe Lieberman (%#@!!**&) to a huge Florida crowd screaming "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah", continues to draw the faithful to great emotional response.  It’s hard to know if, when people go into the voting booth, this emotion will translate into votes – or the reality will hit them and they won’t be able to do it.

My other fear is that because the race is moving toward Obama, acts of desperate chicanery will be part of the election day landscape.  Here are some things that are already happening;

• Republicans purging voter rolls, particularly of young first-time voters
• De-listing voters whose homes have been foreclosed – with the claim that since the voters no longer have an address, they can’t vote.
• Closing polling places in Democratic areas and intimidating officials
• Trying to keep absentee ballots from newly registered voters
• Names missing from voter rolls that affect legitimacy of absentee ballots

If you’re an attorney or law student, you can help with these things and the others that will happen.

We Americans will be tested in many ways in the next few years: economically, militarily, educationally, diplomatically and more.  The first test, though, is this:  As we face these challenges and all the others certain to emerge, and we think about our kids and what we want to leave for them, will we be able to take a deep breath and vote for "the smart guy" or is the phenomenon that is Sarah Palin the canary in our coal mine – warning us that our electorate is, even after W, not ready to choose the most capable and visionary, who has inspired so very many of our next generation to enter the fray,  when they can elect Tina Fey light and her "old guy" running mate instead?