Sarah Palin is the politics we, the US of A, deserve.   Now by we I don’t necessarily mean you - and I hope I don’t mean myself.   But for the society as a whole, one that takes more notice of a political advertisement featuring Britney Spears and Paris Hilton than any substantive policy stance of the Presidential candidates, the soap opera that is the Sarah Palin pick for GOP Veep nominee is the inevitable destination for an electorate and news media swayed more by personality and narrative than facts.

“This campaign is not about issues,” said Rick Davis, John McCain’s campaign manager, during the recent Republican National Convention in a statement that has been widely mocked by Democrats, including Barack Obama.   Mr. Davis doesn’t really have much choice, for if the campaign revolved around issues, and nothing but issues, his candidate would undoubtedly be down at least 20 points in the polls.   But here we sit, with two short months until the election (though, admittedly, in the midst of an RNC post convention bounce) with the candidates virtually tied in the polls.   Obviously, despite the Democrat’s protestations, much more than issues are at play, and the party that is better able to manage and control those factors in the mass attention span of the public will claim victory come November.

In Robert Caro’s Means of Ascent, his remarkable second volume of his biography of Lyndon Johnson, he outlines LBJ’s 1948 run for Texas’ US Senate seat versus the overwhelmingly popular, straight-shooting, former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson.   Johnson, in a must-win race in his career, ends up “winning” the election after trying every electoral trick known to man including changing longstanding stances on labor issues, hiring a helicopter (which most people had never seen at the time) to create huge turnout by curious onlookers at rallies, paying off party bosses to get out or manufacture the vote, spending record amounts of cash put up by his chief benefactor Brown & Root (which to this day enjoys enormous military contracts in its current incarnation, Kellogg, Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton), misrepresenting his opponents policy views and character at every opportunity, stealing the election after the votes have been counted with the help of paid-off, brutally corrupt local “politicians” in South Texas border counties who “find” supposedly unreported votes & finally having a state court ordered recount of the election stopped by a United States Supreme Court Justice (sound familiar?).   On the other side of the campaign, Stevenson does little more than drive to various Texas towns, often by himself, and give unannounced speeches in the town square relying on his reputation and his unbending faith in the judgement of voters.   A lifer Texas politician remarks in the book that the trouble with Stevenson was that he tried to appeal to people’s intellect, rather than their emotions.

Running on people’s emotions is exactly the approach the GOP has swung to, full on, with the choice of Palin for the bottom of the ticket.   Love her or hate her, nearly everyone has a strong opinion on the woman who could be President, should her ticket guided by Karl Rove apostle, Steve Schmidt should capture the White House.   But the distractions don’t just stop with charged emotions.   There is an igloo full of drama in her Alaskan family, from the Iraq-bound older son, the pregnant Bristol and shotgun hubby to be Levi Johnston, the irrepressible Piper, Down syndrome afflicted baby Trig and the oil drilling, snow machine driving husband.   All of it makes for a more interesting diversion than your typical political babble, none of it will make one bit of difference in hardly anyone’s lives besides the Palins and Johnstons and all of it is an enormous distraction from one of the most important Presidential elections of our lifetimes.

So what’s the answer?  My advice is to keep talking and talking about Sarah Palin and her family drama ad infinitum, for anything that acquires this much attention is bound to crash and burn in the fickle court of public opinion sooner rather than later.

You can takepart in protecting women’s rights by logging onto Planned Parenthood.

LINKS:

NY Times: McCain and Palin’s Shotgun Marriage

Time: Are Evangelicals Really Sold on Palin?

Chicago Tribune: Don’t “Misunderestimate” Palin’s Power