So, what should I be churning out this week? A pie chart of Sarah Palin’s campaign expenses? A venn diagram of things Joe The Plumber is and is not? Perhaps a comparison matrix of what socialism means depending on whether you are criminally stupid or not? To be honest, the temptation lingers. I do like selling t-shirts, after all.

But the truth is that I’m done with this campaign. Done with these characters. Am I surprised that Sarah Palin dropped $150,000 of donated money on some new threads? No. Not even a little bit. In fact, when I expressed the opinion that she’s just a self serving bitch hooked up to a perpetual ego machine, some people took offense. This whole wardrobe story is just more of the same from her. Is it any surprise that the former mayor who thought her power extended infinitely unless a court ordered her to obey the law would abuse her campaign contributors by dropping three times the median American family’s income on a wardrobe revamp? It wasn’t to me. And it shouldn’t have been for anyone willing to pierce the paper-thin veil of Hockey Mom Folks-ism to see the petty arrogance behind it.

On the up side, in about eleven days, Sarah Palin will be an afterthought. A cultural aberration. A punchline. Just another embarrassing footnote in the long line of minor tragedies and social disgraces that scar the political landscape. Jon Stewart and David Letterman will begrudgingly mourn her passing. Tina Fey will get to talk in her normal voice again. She won’t be coming back in four, eight, or even twelve years. She’s not a diamond in the rough. As Vice-Presidential candidates go, Sarah Palin couldn’t hold Dan Quayle’s coat.

Even the argument that she was George Bush in a dress (ewwww) doesn’t hold water. Bush had connections. He had “people”. He had his father’s money and his mother’s sneer. He knew, at the very least, that he’d better surround himself with people who knew what they were doing. And while he might not have done a bang up job – ever – he could at least hold a press conference. He had a proven track record. Admittedly, it was a record of feigning compentence long enough to drive whatever he was currently in charge of right into the ground. But hey, at least it was experience. The absurd part is that if Bush looked no different than McCain to many voters, he actually looked better than Palin. The revolting part is that the GOP ran her anyway.

As far as I can tell, there are really two bright spots to the Sarah Palin candidacy. The first, of course, was my flow chart. But the second (and I’m willing to concede, slightly more important) was the utter repudiation of the political myth that any asshole can get elected if they tow the party line and memorize their talking points. Palin did everything that a dim bulb in the spotlight could have possibly done to set up an infinite crecendo of false choices. She was a common sense, small town, America loving, Christian family mom, and her opponent was an eggheaded, city-slick, secret Muslim terrorist.

And it failed.

Do you hear that, traditional media? The politics of character assassination, the up-and-under shiv to the fear centers of your panicky audience’s frontal lobes missed, and missed badly. Even the pundits who carried water for eight years of the most unpopular President in American history are unable or unwilling to attach their names and reputations to Sarah Palin. Hell, her own campaign staff can hardly defend her. Maybe. . . just maybe, the American public is getting sick and tired of The Stupid.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.