Political Frustrations

OK Bush nabbed the coveted seat in 2000 but we all know about that heist. Then in 2004, deep in the muck of Iraq, Americans displayed their lack of foresight handing Bush a bigger shovel. Now here we are–2008; the year decorated with the promise of hope could be heading over the same troubled waters. And it’s the same Americans like you and I behind the wheel.

On one hand not much has changed. The American middle class is continuing to pay for a war they’re more than unsure of. Jobs continue to disintegrate, companies continue to leave. Roe continues to argue with Wade and the powers that be continue to debate the use of our last wilderness. Four dollar gas, while seemingly new on the scene, is simply a catalyst for worn down debates.

On the other hand much has changed. Obama and Palin have shaken up the vision for America. The social anxieties the candidates have stirred up are pushing us to the brink of another big mistake. Just a few months ago Obama met with nearly 80,000 in Portland, Oregon. He had energized America with a recipe for fundamental change. Clinton supporters, so utterly devastated, were soothed and it seemed unity was finally taking shape. While Americans continue to wrestle with race and feminism, the Grand Ol’ Party has once again poisoned a pure idea for power, attempting to marry their ideals to the female vote using the most chauvinist tactic in history. They picked a trophy wife.

Palin scares the heck out of me. Not because she’s a woman. Not because she can take care of five kids, head the PTA and Alaska while I still struggle to take care of my dog. She is scary because she represents much of what Bush was in 2000–ordinary folk you can sit and have a beer with. Combined with her hard edged policy, she has the GOP drooling. Pro-life, pro-oil, pro guns. She’s a perfect ten. If she put on a cowboy hat Dick Cheney would probably go into cardiac arrest. What is un-nerving in this election, as in the past, is that the American people, women in particular, may see that here is a mom like me with convictions and responsibilities just like me. There in lies the problem. Americans need to feel a connection to their candidate. Who can blame us. How many look at a Harvard Law student and finish their sentence with ‘just like me.’ Unfortunately our need to relate to a candidate clouds the issues at stake. There is a foreign policy nightmare that needs fixing, a cataclysmic climate problem and standing water still festering in Louisiana basements. The American obsession with citizen by day and super-hero by night has gone too far. It’s time for us to admit we need a team of cautious, thoughtful, and qualified individuals who are ready to take on the conservative quagmire.

We elected a president based on his normalcy. We elected a president that stuck to his decisions unwaveringly. Our president showed us time and again that he was unwilling to compromise, and in the process somehow made that look like strength and courage. The same party that brought us such gems as Ann Coulter and Lisa Murkowski, now delivers Sarah Palin. She has made it clear her stance on abortion will not bend, creationism should be taught in schools, the arctic needs drilling and the Iraq war must be "won." She doesn’t sound like the kind of person who is looking forward to sitting down at the round table and making some compromises. And with her hard nosed image you have to feel for poor Levi, who went and got her daughter pregnant. That’s like filing suit against Judge Judy before realizing you have to testify on her TV show.

Luckily for all those who seek rational candidates to fill positions of power, she does come with baggage. And I’m not talking about her family life. If there is one thing that bothers me, it is pork-barrel spending. Oil? Pork? Alaskans have yet to see a difference, they just want more of them. If indeed the facts line up, and she can be linked to the infamous "bridge to Nowhere," the most delicious of metaphors has taken shape. I have been to Ketchikan and would argue for its status as somewhere. But Gravina Island across the Narrows from the city really is nowhere. And I think I know what nowhere is like, I chose to live in the middle of it while my friends were somewhere else. I could never go back to Ketchikan had that colossal expanse been allowed to be built with taxpayers money. Had it been, one thing is for sure. The Republicans would have held their convention on it.