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With the selection of Sarah Palin, the McCain camp and his handlers have sought to turn this election around or create a "game changing" moment. This "game changer" is meant to distract voters and the media away from what is really happening. And what is really happening , right before our eyes, is the fact that McCain has no real plan to govern America. He doesn't have a coherent plan to deal with the economy, education, energy, or the two wars we're mired in at this moment. The talking points he has listed on his website don't amount to a real plan. What is occurring is the shifting away from policy to personality. Even Rick Davis, McCain's campaign strategist, said that this campaign would not be about issues, but about personalities. Why would anyone aspiring to win voters and ultimately gain power want to run not on the issues, but rather personalities? Why? Because that person doesn't have any plans or the plans they do have are so unpopular and outside of the mainstream of American thinking.
Would most Americans agree to privatizing Social Security? Would most Americans agree to another 100 years of war in Iraq? Would most Americans sign on to the neoconservative viewpoint and Sarah Palin's religiously based foreign policy view that America's religious and moral duty is to bring "democracy" to every corner of the world, whether they like it or not? This is aligned with the old view of "Manifest Destiny", the view that it was this country's God-given right to expand west and culturize the "savages" in the American way. What is different today? It is one thing to act on verifiable military intelligence for national security purposes and it's another thing to go on a cowboy mission, flying by the seat of your pants, full out invasion of a sovereign country with falsified intelligence.
This is why the Republicans needed a distraction. The ideals, issues, and policy their party stands for have been proven to be disastrous and ineffective. So what do they do? They inserted a virtual soap opera into the mix just when the heat of the fire started to singe and burn off the credibility they had in the view of a large segment of America. They can't have that!
Contrary to what they may say, they didn't expect this much of a battle. They didn't expect for a leader like Barack Obama to come along and wake people from their malaise and inaction, which has allowed the past 8 years to go as it has. They are frightened. This is why McCain threw a Hail Mary pass with Sarah Palin. He needed people to stop talking about the issues Barack Obama has been raising for the past 19 months to disappear and to get people back to talking about what Republicans want people to talk about: soap opera, Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, and wedge issues. They don't want people questioning the status quo. They don't want people questioning why McCain has offered to give the most wealthiest in this country most of the tax breaks he is offering. They don't want people questioning why we are giving tax breaks to companies who ship jobs overseas. They don't want people questioning why we should just bend to the will of oil companies and mortgage companies. They don't want people questioning why they don't have access to affordable health care when most developed nations provide their citizens with it. They don't want people questioning why their incomes have receded while inflation has gone up under this Republican administration. They don't want people questioning why gas prices have tripled under two oil men in the White House. Why? Because then they would have to answer and they don't have any credible lies to spin to these people.
So, in comes Sarah "Barracuda" Palin, a "hockey mommen, gun toting, basketball playing, 5 kid having, moose dressing, mavericky reformer, soon to be grandmother" in the mix. But what is her purpose? Her purpose certainly isn't to help McCain govern this country, not with her nonexistence on the national scene until a week ago and her relative inexperience governing anything with excellence. She has been governor of Alaska for 18 months and four years before that she ended her term as Mayor of a small town called Wasilla, a town she left 20 million dollars in debt, a town with very little organization, a town that is the "meth capital" of Alaska, a town that didn't even have street signs. What is her purpose? Her purpose is to distract us and to get us off talking about the issues. It is so tempting to lay into this woman on everything from her position on Abortion to her hypocrisy surrounding Abstinence-only education to her extremist view on God's role in foreign policy. She is, indeed, the farthest rightwing candidate to run since Pat Buchanan. So why would a so-called "moderate, bi-partisan maverick" like McCain choose someone so far out on the fringe right to be his running mate? He is so desperate to get into the White House. He believes it should have been him in 2000. He believes he has a score to settle. His handlers believe this is their only opportunity to hold power and further cover up some of the misdeeds which have gone unchecked in the past 8 years. They aren't putting "Country First", they are totally self-interested, as proven by their selection of Sarah Palin.
So how do we avoid the Black Hole that is Sarah Palin? Barack Obama's campaign, I believe, will treat her as a cipher. She is irrelevant in the final equation because John McCain is who has to be taken down. Palin would be a distraction, a trap door for them that would lead to a maze that is never-ending and in which they would never be able to escape. She is a trap for them, set up to capitalize off of the Democratic primaries and the race between Obama and Hillary. They are so cynical as to think Obama and Hillary's supporters would fall for it. The media is willfully helping them in their cause. They are getting more frustrated because Obama is not falling for it, therefore, they will manipulate the news so that it seems that this race is close, so that Obama and his campaign reacts and begins attacking Palin. This would go against his message of change. They have been trying to get him to cede the change message and it hasn't worked. They believe they have a way to get him off of his game by drawing him into the soap opera that is Sarah Palin. They have even gone so far as to refuse the media access to Sarah Palin, saying that the American people don't need to know what Sarah Palin thinks. How obnoxious and arrogant. But do you think the media will say or do anything about it? No! They will continue to tow the Party line and hit and monitor Obama's every move. Why? Because the media is just an extension, the PR wing, of the Republican party.
We are fighting something much more powerful than what is in front of us. We are fighting power, wealth, greed, hatred, and evil. The little guys like us have never had such a fight on our hands before. They are shocked we have gotten this far. So they are throwing everything at us, endangering the country with their black hole of a V.P. candidate, and dividing us further. They are desperate. We should just continue doing what we have been doing and we will come out on the other side victorious.
Sarah Palin is a distraction. She is a black hole meant to suck us in and get us off the game that got us here. I expect even more "game changers" from the GOP, even more distractions, even more wedge and divisive issues to be highlighted by the GOP and the media. But we can't stop talking about the issues that matter and these candidate's positions on these issues.
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