Overwhelmed

I think the tragedy of this entire presidential campaign is the sacrifice of Sarah Palin. She allowed herself to reach for the brass ring before she was ready. She is an under-rehearsed understudy in a production where the director thought that it would be all right if she went into a performance carrying a script. A really experienced star could get away with that, an unknown cannot. As a result of going on for a star on opening night in a costume that doesn't quite fit and fumbling for lines, Sarah Palin has probably destroyed her career.

Don't get me wrong. There's probably not a chance that I would have agreed with a single syllable that ever came out of her mouth. And as time goes by, I think it's becoming pretty clear that she's about as corrupt as any politician in either party. But I get a sense that under all of that, there is a) a smart woman, and b) someone who might have gone into politics for the right reasons.

I don't know which is the greater disappointment: that Palin made the decision to be part of the last line of the Republican party as it turns the page, or that the page is being turned before Palin was fully developed and become the first line on the new page.

Say what you want, it cannot be denied that Palin has been a breath of fresh air in the stale, smokey, back-boy's room in the house that Rove built. The problem is that the Republican party needs a hurricane to knock that house down. I want them to get it together. The nation needs them to get it together. I don't like the feeling that there wasn't an intellectual debate of the issues in my life time. This campaign (and frankly every campaign I've where I've been eligible to vote) has been lopsided. Obama has provided a good, strong clearing wind (if not a hurricane) to the Democratic party, while Palin has been a breath of fresh air. This country needs to opposing forces to whip into a cyclone and shake things up. In the absence of a controlled political approach to correcting things, the market is collapsing and we're going to clean things out through economic ruin. Again.

I have no illusions about Barak Obama. I know he's a politician. I know he's not perfect and I fully expect to be disappointed by him in the future. But I think that had she been brought to the national stage with a couple years of preparation, the same years of study and prep that Obama has had running for president, I think Palin could have been a formidable adversary to Obama, a no-nonsense, common sense, grass roots approach to his over-intellectual, ivy-league philosophies and approaches. Oh, I'd have still voted for Barak Obama, but I think we'd have gotten a legitimate debate of ideas and issues instead of a flailing ad campaign. What a luxury it must be to go into an election booth and really have to decide between two intelligent, competing philosophies instead of wrestling with intellectual issues that have been defined in emotional terms, to know that whichever way the election is decided there will be someone competent, if not exactly inspired in charge.

For all of her alleged charm, what Palin has is an intellectual approach to her campaigns. You can see it in the delivery of her lines. Like an actress who is calculating every move an inflection for effect, Palin's speeches are studied, they're calculated. Sure, she's shoveling the emotionally based message the campaign is feeding her, but unlike McCain it's clear she's trying to understand the concepts behind the message. It's clear that with more preparation and experience, with room to make a mistake or two or fail, she could have led a Republican campaign instead of taking marching orders like McCain is doing.

If only she'd waited one more campaign cycle.