BECAUSE IT’S PUNCHING US IN THE FACE.
CNN reports on the widespread recognition in Europe that Sarah Palin is an abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous, insane choice for Vice-President, particularly when her boss could quite conceivably die in office of old fucking age.
There have been irritatingly repeated references from the Republican campaign about the bias and intervention of the ‘mainstream media’ in this election. It is clear that by ‘mainstream media’ they simply mean ‘the rest of the world apart from our campaign, base supporters and Fox News’. In a campaign which has steadily become increasingly based on negative character attacks (this on both sides to some extent but much much more so with the Republican ticket), Republican rhetoric has become frighteningly fear-based – can you trust Obama? Who does he hang around with? Have you noticed he’s DIFFERENT? – all without explicitly SAYING what some rally audience members will yell out for them. Thus, when this is pointed out, it’s immediately dismissed as smear, when in fact it’s their own smearing which has caused the ruckus in the first place. Maddening doublethink is this.
Case in point is a brilliatly explained article regarding the recent nothingnews which is the Acorn registration fraud ’scandal’ – quickly picked up by the McCain campaign in order a) to avoid actually discussing policy, and in particular that troublesome economic situation, and b) to imply (and this is rich, considering the cheating which got the current administration into power in 2000) that the Democratic party has in some way colluded with Acorn to unfairly get votes. They seem to forget that people have to TURN UP in order to vote. Mickey Mouse, if he doesn’t exist, will not have his vote counted on election day. ‘Period.’ As the article above points out, the real fear here is that new and real people are, in fact, signing up to vote. This is scary news for the McCain ticket indeed. The matter of a number of registration errors means absolutely nothing to the amount of people who are real and who will be able to vote on the day. This is, indeed, a way of articulating a ridiculous argument to claim fraud and shut down an actually pretty robust system – which IS in fact bipartisan.
Palin has done precisely what the campaign has asked of her: she has rallied against the Democratic ticket by launching smears of doubt, and held together a previously volatile Republican voting base with folksy charm. But it’s precisely this exploitation on the part of her campaign which is in error. Thinking that they would win over Clinton supporters simply by virtue of tossing out a woman was erroneous at best, but plain stupid considering her political standpoint and the issues for which she stands. Her obvious inexperience negated any viable ammunition her party had to snipe Obama – who, incidentally, has considerably more experience than 3 years in the Senate. So, she’s done her job very well, but the job given to her was a bad one in the first place. She has been shielded from unscripted encounters except for the most friendly of interviews such as the one with Limbaugh, which gives weight to criticisms that she is not capable of forming opinions of her own, or holding it together when challenged – two major requirements of a leader. Her position as a woman has been exploited in all the wrong ways, pre-emptively being used as a defence from fierce attack by her opponents (which didn’t work in the VP debate with Biden). She has, in many respects, been taken advantage of by the campaign in ways which could not have been more cynical nor more of a token gesture. Yes, public, they think you’re stupid.
However, the ‘hockey-mom’ tactic isn’t working, if the polls here are anything to go by. The economic woes of the middle- and working-class are now so acute that people are taking policy much more seriously in informing their choice of vote. People are angry, and the anti-intellectual stance in which Republicans accuse those of challenging through thinking of being in some way elitist no longer holds sway. Many people don’t seem to want their best buddy being a heartbeat away from the presidency – they want someone who is going to act intelligently on their behalf on issues which they don’t fully understand. It might not by an idyllic world under Obama, but it’s more likely to involve contextual thinking instead of gut reactions and stubborn personal opinions. The Republican base, who oppose accepting responsibility for their actions for fear of having to change those actions (the booing of Republican viewers to Biden’s opinion that global warming is man-made was a clear gagging reflex by those whose Hummers outside were probably ticking over to keep the air-con flowing) were already won, but are now driven on by stupid lipstick statements which might just throw feminism back a couple of decades. Is this how women want to be represented? Is this how a country would like to be represented? Many of the undecideds, I imagine, are now forever lost for those very reasons.
Even the Obama-Biden ticket might not be 100% perfect, but I feel very stongly, by what I have seen over here, that this election more than any for a very long time, is a split decision between a progressive government which will improve international and civil relations, and a reversion, a seriously damaging step back, to an even more acute marriage between church and state, and an administration bordering on nationalism, fear, intollerance and alienation. Guess which is which.
