Sarah Palin: Let’s Go Shoe Shopping, But Stay Outta My White House

03Oct08

All right ladies, let’s talk politics since politics is finally talking about us. If you watched even a few minutes of the Vice Presidential Debate tonight, you know one thing is true: red patent leather pumps mean business, and they cower to no man. Although the sniveling, ideologically peripatetic excuses we pass off as impartially informed political analysts who fail to call a spade a spade when it reflects poorly on Obama seem to be reluctant to admit so, what happened tonight was a good old-fashioned ass-handing, and both candidates walked away with their hands full: Joe Biden is pathetically balancing the weight of his own derriere, which he benevolently accepted from Sarah Palin, whose hands are now occupied with pulverizing Biden’s balls, which she systematically removed from him; it’s a sad, sad day indeed.

I say it’s a sad day for many reasons. To begin with, the political process has turned into a staged spectacle since the National. This is a problem. More than any other election previous to the current one, the position of vice-president is absolutely vital. After eight successive years of Dick Cheney, the executive branch has more power than it ever has, so we best examine their motivations, their platforms, and their track record: it’s not enough to calculate their relevance solely on how little they make waves—a resounding NO MORE DAN QUAILS! should be a priority. In light of the glaring resume deficiencies which both candidates posses (Obama = Experience, McCain = relativity to anyone under the age of 60), the presidential nominees are relying on their VPs to strengthen their bids for the White House. In his selection of Biden, Obama added valuable experience and a friendlier image to all conservative bigots (conscious and unconscious ones) who cannot fathom letting a Black man loose as Head of State, and McCain was finally able to energize his doddering campaign with some sex appeal (don’t forget those red patent pumps) under girded by a latent hatred for corruption, which everyone can agree on at this point, and a feel good aura of Americana to boot; which is to say: Sarah Palin flat out stole so fresh and so clean clean clear away from Barack Obama.

But we cannot be fooled by superficial impressions, we cannot afford to be bamboozled by cleverly applied MAC cosmetics. As distasteful as it is to admit and discuss, there is a pervasive streak of racial bigotry in this country: it’s evidenced in careless the racial slurs that are thrown around in efforts to be witty, and it’s evidenced in a story told to me by one of my PoliSci professors at San Francisco State University, who is Barack Obama’s campaign manager in San Francisco—Matthew Freeman. While on the campaign trail in the Mid-West with Obama in the infancy of his bid for the White House, Mr. Freeman was pulled aside by an rally participant who said, “I’ll tell you what, sir: I should would like to vote for your candidate here, but I just can’t.” When Mr. Freeman asked him to elaborate he continued: “Well, I think Obama can do this country some real good, and if we put him in the White House, they’re gonna shoot him and he’ll never have a chance to do that good.” What this means is his VP must be ready to assume office at any moment, because he may have to. On the other side of the fence, it’s equally distasteful to discuss age as a weakness because with age comes wisdom, and we’ve seen where a lack of that has gotten us lately. But it is a factor for John McCain, because his body—the body that propels his mind—has endured some horrific assaults, torture and cancer. And he ain’t gettin’ any younger, folks. In fact, he’s getting older. Much older. Which means….he could die of a freaking heart attack due to the overwhelming excitement of being elected and Sarah Palin would be the one to usher Bush out of the Oval Office: no more time to get a feel for Washington at the executive level, no more time to dodge questions that don’t appeal to her palate.

Let’s be honest here, whoever is elected President is inheriting a steaming pile of horeshit, and due to these circumstances their first four years will focus on simply stopping the bleeding, so neither one of them will be regarded very in the annals of history unless they’re able to pull a second term; this means it’s a crap shoot, and I think they’re equally qualified to fuck things up because they’re both politicians and, despite what they’d like you to believe, they’re beholden to certain procedures and certain people: nobody is a Maverick on Capitol Hill. So the question becomes: who will fuck it up less?

I’ve always been of the opinion that you can tell a lot about a man by the kind of woman he marries (and vice versa). I don’t feel I need to discuss how our Presidential nominees wives reflect on them, because it’s a no brainer: McCain’s trophy wife versus Obama’s political partner? Please—open and shut case. I’m more interested in the Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin marriages, and wouldn’t you know it…their political wives mirror their traditional ones. Biden isn’t flashy, but he’s the pragmatic choice who is dressed well and offers the listening public an off-the-cuff quote that keeps them on their toes, much like Michelle. Palin is all looks and was chosen not so much for the cache of her politics, but rather as arm candy for a man who appears to mistake a sharp tongue for substance, and apparently didn’t realize women weren’t so stupid as to side with gender at the expense of their morals and civic beliefs, because (and John McCain I’m talking directly to you with this one) if it walks like a pig, and talks like a pig, then it’s a pig—no lipstick required. If he really thinks that female Obama and Clinton supporters will jump ship for a woman who is a staunch defender of an unborn life at the expense of the life it devastates, he’s mistaken. I’m sure you’re aware she DOES NOT support a woman’s right to an abortion if her father rapes her and she find yourself preggers, right ladies? If he thinks those same supporters will switch sides for a woman who attempted to fire the head librarian in Alaska after she refused to remove books Palin deemed unacceptable from State shelves, he’s mistaken. He’s mistaken because he has missed the point entirely: Barack Obama isn’t the harbinger of change merely because he is Black or young, and women didn’t support Hillary merely due to some lingering Suffragette alliance—it was and is the things that they stand for: equal rights for every man or woman, regardless of sexual orientation; a woman’s right to decide whether or not she wants to bring life into this topsy-turvy, over populated world; and the promulgation of a rational international presence, not one founded on Cold War rhetoric and misplaced appropriations of diplomatic energy and military power. This ain’t about biology, you assholes: our menstrual cycles didn’t nationally synch up the minute Palin appeared on McCain’s ticket and sway our votes. Sorry guys.

And so this is a sad day, because despite the massive strides we’ve taken since we earned the right to vote, men still think we’re emotional, and will vote based on gender irrationality. It’s a sad day because, in many ways, I was proud of Governor Palin tonight, because she not only held her own against a white male in a field dominated by white men, but overcame an experiential deficit of about 30 years in comparison with that white man, and all without directly answering a single question! You know what that means, right? She beat a man at his own game, and looked better doing it. Damn…if only she wasn’t diametrically opposed to everything I stood for, we could go shoe shopping together.  

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Tags: barack obama, election 2008, joe biden, john mccain, political wives, sarah palin, sexism, vice presidential debate, women and politics