It's Not About Sarah.

The press and the public seem to be fascinated with Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate. We are evidently sexist, elitist or blindly liberal if we don't see the value in this candidate. If we claim she doesn't have experience, we are blind to the same charge against Barak Obama, because he has never had to make "Real" decisions like rejecting the bridge to nowhere (thanks but no thanks is the mantra)

There is little doubt that Palin evokes images of a better looking Rosanne Barr, a kind of Gidget goes to Washington persona. She's good looking, smart, tough and looks like she could be someone from your neighborhood. She has accomplished a lot in her short government career and like most politicians some of it's good and some of it's...well not so good. She is the stuff of mythology. Working side by side with her good looking hunky husband, killing moose in the Alaskan wild, and raising her large family, she's the mythological woman who can do everything. Why not run a country?

As David Brooks, New York Times columnist has pointed out she embodies the everyman image of the can-do American with the added advantage of not being a professional politician nor a pointy headed intellectual. She has the mythical common sense that defies education and all of those experienced politicians years of public service. She reaches across the aisle to build consensus. She fights and defeats corruption, even in her own party. She leaps tall buildings in a single bound... Okay, I've gone to far. And like most good fiction stories there is enough of a whiff of truth in all of these perceived traits and experiences to give her a veil of reality.

But there is one thing that makes Palin patently unfit for office. She's a Republican. Yes, an unapologetic member of the party that has brought you the last thirty years of grief, if your a member, or maybe a former member, of the middle class. With a mindless mantra of we need less government, less handouts to welfare queens, adherence to free market economic principles, privatize government and other such bright ideas, we have gotten Enron, the aftermath of Katrina, the dot com bubble. contaminated food, bad drugs, he mortgage crisis and the current melt down in the financial markets. The Republican answer to all of this is a huge social welfare program to save the world from unwanted pregnancies by preaching abstinence and preventing abortion, stigmatizing gay and lesbian people, arguing about the meaning of patriotism and a stupid war in Iraq.

While the middle class disintegrates, more of us do without proper health care, good paying jobs become more and more difficult to find, the cost of living keeps going up and the globe gets warmer and climatically more unstable. Gidgit and her friends want us to worry about the horror of gay marriage, the tragedy of not teaching creationism and the unfairness of allowing rape and incest victims to simply decide not to bear children that result from these atrocities. Instead of the things that really matter to all of us Republicans, Democrats and Independent citizens of this planet. Sarah Palin is a decent person who undoubtedly believes strongly in her adherence to conservative political stance on the issues and that is why she should not become that person that is a heartbeat away from being the President of the United States, as well as why John McCain should not be our next president. It's not who they are, it's what they believe in that disqualifies them for office. They are simply wrong on the issues that are important.

Hillary Supporters

When I hear that die hard supporters of Hillary Clinton will "never pull the lever" for Obama, my first reaction is why would they say this? I understand and sympathize with their disappointment. If my first choice, Obama, had been defeated, I would have felt the same way, but evidently not quite as strongly. Because this election has to be about change and the kind of change we need is not just on the edges nor is the kind of change we need going to come from Republicans. It needs to come from motivated Democrats, disgruntled Republicans and energized independents, who are just plain fed up with the lack of leadership in both parties and the demonstrated inability of the Republican Party to lead.

As such, I would have had trepidations about voting for Clinton because I'm not sure that she believes that wholesale change is not only necessary and do able, nor do I think she can do it with all of the negatives she would bring to the office, but the options are clear and I would have done it. Four more years of coddle the corporate interests, supply side economics, lassie faire social policy and funding a war without end is not an option.

Clinton's attempt to be the first women to run for president on a major party ticket didn't happen for a lot of reasons and most of them were not her fault, but circumstance often controls the outcome. Her reputation, earned or not, is out there like the Goodyear blimp at a golf tournament throwing it's shadow over the field of play. What Hillary supporters sound like and are acting like is almost a third party movement. and left to it's own devices could easily lead to to another of the famous and historical splits in the Democratic party.

However, third party's are mainly based on policy differences with the major parties and the policy differences between Obama and Clinton are not great. There is no civil rights division in the party. There is not antiwar division in the party. Women are well represented in the party hierarchy and even though women thought they had the opportunity to nominate Hillary as the first female presidential candidate from a major party, it didn't happen. No this is a cult movement. It's a movement based on personality; indeed it appears as perception of personality. I say this because this movement has no momentum if Hillary isn't in the picture, but even when she removes herself as she did with her courageous and history making speech and subsequent nomination of Obama, the movement persists.

Obama is no doubt a catalyst for the change movement. He has defined it and he will lead it, but like the "New Deal" and "The Great Society" this movement can go on without him. For I believe that the movement was looking for a leader and it found Obama. He works because the articulates the heartfelt anger and dissatisfaction people have with government. He exemplifies the need for a political atmosphere of respect and cooperation rather than the politics of the personal and animosity. I believe if Obama had not risen to this task we would have eventually found someone else.

And make no mistake, this is not over on election day even if Obama carries the day. The forces against the change in the status quo are not about to fold their abdicate their power, no matter how diminished that power might be. No, a return to a government that represents all of the people instead of those with access will not come easy and a President Obama can not do it alone. He is going to need all of us every step of the way.