Saturday, August 30, 2008

Into the Groove, Apparently

You will notice that it's before 8 AM on Saturday morning. You will also notice that I'm writing on my blog, which must mean that I am awake. Ah, the joys of being back on my school sleeping schedule. I've been wondering why I've been so exhausted and zonking out around 11. I suspect it has something to do with the whole wake-up time thing, no? Ah yes, it all makes sense.

My mom is actually visiting my cousin this weekend in Florida, so I can't call her to bother her (for normally we do talk on Saturday and Sunday mornings, although usually not quite this early, but sometimes I make her talk to me this early because I figure she's my mom and she has to put up with things like early phone calls from me), and so here I am, bothering you. I don't really have anything to write about. I'm kind of boring, really.

Well, I suppose I could write about Sarah Palin, but I've yet to decide what I actually want to say about her. I suppose I'll leave it at this for now: the thing that's brilliant about Palin as a choice is that because she's such a dark horse for McCain to have chosen - such a brief time in public life, such a short resume, etc. - she can, to some extent, be whomever McCain wants her to be. As opposed to a Biden, with a 30-year record of decisions and public activity and votes, Palin has something like 3 things that you can go after her on: the whole internal investigation in her state thing, her policies on drilling/energy, and ... yeah, I'm sure there must be something else. You can't really go after her on the pro-life thing because the obvious response would be that you're a baby-murderer who thinks she should have aborted her youngest son. It's a personal attack rather than a political - or even an ethical and moral - disagreement. And so, McCain gets to shape her as a "reformer," even as she's somebody that the base of the Republican party loves for all the social conservatism stuff she believes in. We don't have much of a real record on her to attack, but at the same time, she's the one candidate in this race with executive governing experience. Do I think she's legitimately qualified to be Vice President? No. But I can't actually make a case for why not precisely because of the ways in which she's almost qualified, if that makes sense. In other words, I think the choice of Palin was ultimately diabolical and brilliant. And it will be interesting to see how the Obama-Biden ticket handles it.

In other news, I am positively sick of 90-degree weather with the ragweed raging so out of control that I cannot be outside for 30 seconds without sneezing, in spite of allergy meds. Where in the heck is fall? Because I'm done with the late-summer allergies and the late-summer heat. Done, I say.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah, i don't know....she's not the most experienced but you know, I don't know how far a person can press that in this election.

Dr. Crazy said...

Well that's the thing: you can't call her out on lack of experience because the experience that she does have is the right kind to balance the ticket. At the same time, having less experience I think actually helps in this case because it means that what matters is who she is - or who the campaign shapes her into - than what she's done. That's why the whole "under investigation in her own state" thing doesn't really matter. This choice isn't about record so much as about potential and about appealing to people on a personal level. McCain's got all the experience stuff people could want. The point of a Palin on the ticket isn't, ultimately, her resume but her "values." I think that's where things get interesting come debate time. She can use the VP debate to go after record, while Biden is put in a position where he pretty much has to go after who she is. Which will then, likely, make him look like a sexist bully. Which then energizes not only the base but the undecideds, potentially. And that is what makes it a diabolical and brilliant choice, I think.

I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like to me this early in the game.