Theatre of the Absurd: A Big Campaign About Small Things

The choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's vice presidential running mate tells us a lot about the Republican Party that we already know: They don't care about governing, they only care about winning. Secondly, John McCain and his "handlers" have their own notions about the "right kind" of woman to be our first female Vice President. Someone who will be colorful and entertaining and baldly appeal to the fundamentalists' base.

The "Feisty Reformer" is just as illusory as "Maverick." While the Republicans are busy packaging their figureheads with the goal of closing the sale, the Democrats are busy looking for people who "understand the issues," or who have the necessary "credentials." They cite the Harvard Law Review, while John McCain cites a Miss Alaska runner - up. The complicit media breathlessly describe McCain's choice as a "game-changer." They're right. But not in the way they mean it.

Too many people have serious, urgent concerns about the economy. Many of them are even Republicans. Some have expressed concern about McCain's penchant, in this campaign, to do nothing but attack his opponent, while proposing little in the way of relief, callously ignoring what the people in this country, including loyal Republicans, many of them small business owners, are facing. Some Republicans expressed hope that once McCain picked a running mate, and the convention began, things would change. We would hear some concrete proposals. McCain's pick demonstrates to them that things are trending in a different, albeit more familiar direction.

John McCain just threw a "Hail Mary " pass. The only function Sarah Palin has is to shore up the right wing, religious extremists' support for McCain. McCain's strategists also cling to the thin hope that she will attract disgruntled Hillary supporters. But to suggest such a thing is insulting. So her usefulness is limited. Secondly, there are undecided, economically distressed Republicans, and some Democrats, who have been sitting on the fence. Many of them just jumped off that fence and onto the Obama bandwagon. Finally, there were serious, moderate, practical people on the Republican side, who were hoping for Romney, Ridge, Pawlenty, or Leiberman. Their disappointment is palpable. What McCain is saying to them and to the American voters is that he will bluster his way thru the presidency, the way he's crashed thru every other important passage in his public life. There has never been a Vice Presidential nominee so singularly unqualified for this position since Dan Quayle.

Instead of demonstrating leadership and sound judgement, a steady hand in perilous times, McCain is playing to the cheap seats. He is less a maverick, then he is just an erratic, egotistical narcissist. Some people are suggesting the Democrats have to "be careful "not to attack Governor Palin. Hopefully those people won't regard a robust discussion of the issues as "attacks." This is a woman who's slender record and public pronouncements has shown that she promotes her religious beliefs as public policy. The question is whether the corporate shills in the mainstream media will do the vetting the American people need and that John McCain's campaign clearly has not done.

Sarah Palin has been governor for less then two years.This candidate who aspires to be "one heartbeat away from the presidency" of a 72 year old cancer survivor, admitted recently she didn't keep up with or know much about the war in Iraq. This woman is now the running mate of the man who admitted a few weeks ago, he didn't know much about the economy. At a time when most Americans are concerned about larger issues, I'm afraid all the Republicans are serving up is "...a big campaign about small things."