The State Of The Race: Palin Edition

So, my dear friends, as our opponent likes to say (and man is that a great little trademark or what? Just goes to show why John McCain is absolutely the premier Republican they could’ve fielded against Senator Obama), what is the state of the race? First of all, it feels a little better than last week, eh?

Over the last week or so people I’ve known to love politics, both here in Lund and abroad, have asked for my opinion on Governor Palin and the prospects for Democratic victory come November.

And yeah, it was a genius pick. Absolutely right out of the McCain playbook – unpredictable and dare I say maverick-esque? The whole nomination of the woman just shows how Republicans to such a fantastic degree understand that politics is a contact sport, a fucking bloodbowl really. Case in point: Senator McCain hammer away at Senator Obama for months about how the single most important characteristic lacking the charismatic YOUNG Senator from Illinois is experience. He gets good traction off of it, for a while. But Rick Davis and McCain’s campaign folk knew he wasn’t headed towards a win in November so the genial part is where they decide that they’ve ridden the “experience”-donkey as far as they could and just throw it out of the window with the Palin nomination.

See, they know that voters don’t care about a little inconsistency, they’ve used the experience-card and in a stroke of genius they chuck out the window and pick up another one – the maverick moose-hunting hockey-mom reformer with executive experience and cougar looks-card. That’s a great card. No matter that it’s totally inconsistent (and the bullshit about Governor Palin’s foreign policy experience gleaned from living in Alaska which is really close to Russia…). Don’t kid yourself though, there’s enough bullshit to go around (although I’m obviously too biased in Senator Obama’s favor not to mention that he does it far less then Senator McCain ). Remember a few months ago, this was pretty much exactly what Obama did when campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania and talking at great length about renegotiating NAFTA so as to benefit blue collar workers. That was proven to have been a bold-faced lie later on when it leaked out that an Obama advisor was meeting with Canadian authorities stressing how that renegotiating NAFTA bit was just rhetoric – no matter, people don’t pay that close attention! I mean, off course you pander to working class people when you’re in Pennsylvania and Ohio (gawd…what’s wrong with Ohio?) and put on another coat when you’re campaigning in New York.

So Senator McCain’s Palin-pick was awesome, and made for fantastically fun reading.

Seriously folks, here’s a woman who would be one heartbeat away from the presidency (and an old one at that) and she had never held a passport until a year and a half ago! Here’s a woman who had never been abroad except Canada and Mexico before she became Governor, and then she only traveled to touch base with her national guardsmen. I mean, of course this is something that an International Man Of Mystery™ like myself would object to, and of course my European, communist liberal, proudly elitist self would see this as a great problem for a Presidential hopeful… But seriously, for people who don’t think that kind of thing matter, whether a person tasked to lead a country had ever even been abroad…if you don’t think that matter, then nothing I could possibly say would ever change your mind.

Governor Palin has a fantastic future ahead of her. She’s a reformer who dares take on intrenched interest, with a folksy feel and awesome looks. She will NOT be the Vice President of the United States come November but you better believe that she will be the next Republican superstar. When Republicans lose the presidency and fall even farther behind in both houses of Congress, a demoralized electorate will look for a new leader and Sarah Palin is the perfect candidate. I’m not an oracle by any means, but if you don’t think Governor Palin will have the absolute best Republican strategists on her team and will be putting together an exploratory committee the day after Senator Obama and Senator Biden are sworn in, then you’re crazy. Four years in the Alaskan governor’s mansion will be EXACTLY what she needs to shore up her credentials as an American leader and she will be one of the frontrunners for the Republican nomination in 2012 along with Governor Romney. She will be Ronald Reagan with tits. You heard it here first folks.

But was Sarah Palin the end of the Obama dream? Obviously no. People where panicking over the polls after the Republican nominating convention where Senator McCain was ahead in the horse race for a few days – but the exact same thing happened when the Democrats nominated the first woman nominee for VP, Geraldine Ferraro back in the 80’s. These numbers are soft and the polls are already coming down again. Senator Obama is ahead, for sure not by the margin he SHOULD be or I’d WANT him to be – but ahead he is. And sad as it is for the American economy (and if you thought American market crashes only affect America I might add that my portfolio is down to its lowest point in five years), the veritable implosion of the American markets only help Senator Obama.

So yeah, we’re still winning.

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