I spent the last week of my summer vacation at home in Connecticut thinking about little but the election; I actually got annoyed at NPR when they tried to talk about anything but. How, I wondered, could anyone think about bird calls or flies when there was an election at hand?
As the news of impending doom in New Orleans flooded the airwaves, and the situation in Georgia (which actually concerns me quite a bit) seemed to be winding down much more slowly than projected, I came to my senses. Still, the election takes up a lot of room in my thoughts, when I’m not otherwise occupied with thinking about how to arrange my new Woodbridge suite and get rid of that horrible institutional furniture.
I’ve been lazy about posting on this blog this summer, with the exception of a swarm of posts at the very beginning. My last post was a roundup of VP candidates for Obama just after he secured the Democratic nomination, and before Jim Webb preemptively rejected the position (which, I decided after reading Timothy Noah’s convincing argument, was a good thing). Now, quite a while later, it’s the vice-presidential candidates that I can hardly get my mind off of. I’m not, of course, talking about Biden.
It’s been said many times already, but, as a woman, I am insulted by the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate. Maureen Dowd, in a typically pithy column, put it well, saying, “Why do men only pick women as running mates when they need a Hail Mary pass? It’s a little insulting.” Take a close look at the resume of the woman John McCain calls “the next Vice-President of the United States.” Forty-four years old, she has a BA in journalism (a minor in poli sci!) from the University of Idaho, served as a sportscaster before her six-year tenure as mayor of a town of 6,715 (according to the town website), and was sworn in as governor of Alaska in December 2006. Now imagine, for a moment, that Sarah Palin is a man. What reason could McCain possibly have to pick him when compared with all the qualified and eager politicians in this country?
I realize, of course, that as an affirmed Obama supporter, I am not the targeted audience of the VP choice. These women are. But, despite all the publicity they are getting, PUMAs are apparently few and far between and, after Hillary’s moving endorsement of her one-time opponent, becoming even scarcer. Many of the die-hard Clinton supporters are affiliated with the PAC EMILYS List, which is dedicated to electing pro-choice females to office.
Palin, on the other hand, is famously pro-life, having given birth to her fifth child in May despite the fact that an amnio revealed him to have Down Syndrome. Or did she? A rumor is floating around the interwebs that is so delicious I think it deserves its own post.
Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer, though GQ magazine’s The Style Guy said in the latest issue (yes, it’s one of my guilty pleasures) that it might be ok to wear a seersucker suit after Labor Day considering global warming has extended summer into what was once autumn’s turf. Classes may start on Tuesday, but my mind will, like the weather, stay in its summer all-politics frame for some time to come.