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And that's the key to her popularity.
She's been compared to a contestant on a reality show like American Idol or America's Got Talent, which is a great metaphor, but at least when contestants compete on reality shows like those, they're competing against others like them, so their chance of winning is as good as anyone else's because they have just about even qualifications and background to the rest. Given that, their performance during the show is everything, and they stand or fall based on that alone (or at least, they should--when they don't, there's an outcry that the voting is rigged).
That's not the situation here.
Palin is more like those famous "athletes" who got into the Olympic Games more because, as bad as they were, they were the best in their respective countries, and thus managed to qualify to compete at the Games against those far more accomplished than they.
Remember Eddie the Eagle? Best ski-jumper around...in Great Britain. At the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, he didn't so much fly off the ski jump as fall off it. He wore glasses that fogged up in the cold so he couldn't see. He finished dead last. But people loved him. Why? Because they could relate to him. He was what Everyman would be like if somehow he were allowed to compete against the giants.
The International Olympic Committee, worried that the Games were turning into a joke and that some woefully inexperienced athlete might kill himself, instituted more rigid qualifying standards after that. It wasn't enough to be the best in your country anymore, you had to have achieved a minimum level of global competence at your sport.
The Jamaican Bobsled Team was, and is, more serious. They really want to keep improving and be taken seriously and not just as a novelty act. But in 1988, that's what they were. They even overturned their sled and finished upside-down once. But people loved them, too. They had their own theme song. They eventually got their own movie.
Then you had Eric Moussambani, aka "Eric the Eel," the swimming star of Equatorial Guinea. He won his spot at the 2000 Sydney Games by wildcard draw, even though he didn't qualify, because his country doesn't have expensive training facilities and the IOC, while enforcing minimum standards after Eddie, also wanted to encourage more participation by developing countries. He won his 100-meter freestyle heat not because he was the fastest, but because the other two guys in the heat were disqualified for false starts. In the finals, Moussambani finished dead last in more than twice the winner's time. But hey...he finished. And people loved him for it, because he exemplified true athletic effort, because he never gave up.
Stories like these warm people's hearts at the Olympics. Sure, they tune in to see the best of the best, but those human-interest stories about ordinary guys reaching for the stars, who never even come close because they're so laughably incompetent, inevitably grab people. Why? Because most of us know that if we were ever allowed to compete in an Olympics, we would be like them. Utterly hopeless, but (we want to think) game to the end. Your reach should exceed your grasp, and all that.
So, while it's frustrating and mind-boggling to see some people going gaga over Sarah Palin, and trying to get glasses like hers, and all that other nonsense, don't be too surprised at the lack of logic in it all. The people who do so are not concerned about her qualifications. They're just imagining themselves in her place, and how cool it would be to have someone pluck them out of their own moribund existence and turn their lives into a Cinderella story. They want to believe that the glass slipper will fit for her, because if it will for her, maybe it would for them, too.
What they need to be reminded of is that at the Olympics, stories like Eric the Eel's are entertaining and heartwarming, but the gold medals go to the Michael Phelpses of the world. As well they should.
Fall in love with Eddie the Eagle, the Jamaican bobsledders and Eric the Eel if you must...but if you need to bet on who will take home the gold, the smart money's on Michael Phelps.
And right now, this country desperately needs to be run by someone who can do it like Phelps swims...not someone who can somehow manage to flail across the pool in twice the time, but is just sooooooo cute and gutsy and trying soooooooo hard...
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