Friday, October 3, 2008

Sarah and Joe...

I got to my room in the Napa Valley in time to watch the VP debate. I grabbed a salad (ceasar) and a pinot gris from a local store, uncorked the wine, pulled up a chair and watched--not really expecting much.

Biden was serious. He even choked up a bit. I was hoping he'd be a bit more relaxed. I guess the gravity of the debate weighed heavily on his mind. I like the relaxed Joe better. The humorous Joe. Kudos to him for calling Dick Cheney the most dangerous VP ever. And he didn't let Palin throw her intensely memorized crap at him.

Now if only Joe would stop being the Senator to the Credit Card Companies (hard not to be, if you are from Delaware---where I send a check or two every month) and flaunt even more, his populist roots. Afterall, the guy takes the train to work everyday; his wife is a school teacher.

And Palin? Is it just me, or does her voice sound just like that Marge character from the movie "Fargo"? I hope the American people are sick of "folksy" candidates. Are the Republicans trying to capitalize on a deep-seated populism that worked quite well for the Democrats in 2006? Witness the new Senator from Montana (John Tester) with his slick crew cut and organic farm.

Populism is good, if you actually are a populist. You don't sell the biography without having the biography to back it up. That seems suspect when it comes to Sarah ("You betchya") Palin. Same old tired lines. Of course Palin sells her moose hunting and snowmobiling ways, at the same time she wants to "drill baby drill" every where. Open ANWR. Open beautiful coastal areas. No talk of conservation. Lip service to softer energy paths. An ecological nightmare...

And after the debate? The Biden's and the Palin's mingled. Sarah holds her small infant. It bothered me. Why? Because we don't need to have forty something Mom's having babies when they have already had a family. Yes, the kid has Downs syndrome (it happens)...but what bothers me more is the arrogance we have about flaunting large families on the screen.

Cigarette smoking used to be accepted. No longer. I hope that sometime we will have the same sort of attitude shift regarding large families. Or to quote Bill McKibben's book: "maybe one?". No longer will we applaud the lady who has five or six kids. Instead, there will be an embarrassment about their lack of self-control and family planning.

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