Monday, September 22, 2008

Sarah Palin = The One?

I've been waiting for the nutroots to compare Sarah Palin's popularity with the Obamessiah, and was surprised that it has taken this long for them to notice. Of course, I guess when you are busy spreading crackpot rumors about her or bashing her mothering skills, you don't have much time to notice that Palin is a phenomenon. Well, until Jesse Taylor's spittle-flecked post.

Effusive praise for her ability to speak without a teleprompter (there’s a reason!), pulling out the mom card, even the giddy promise of road trips to see The Palin...it’s not so much that conservatives are doing every single thing they said Obama supporters were doing in support of their Euro man-god, but that they have no fucking idea what they’ve been saying for over a year.


Well, there are a coupleof differences between Sarah Palin's popularity and Barack Obama's. First, Palin isn't talking about her godlike ability to stop oceans from rising, nor does she gives speeches from a Parthanon-like edifice. And she doesn't have women swooning because of her Palinness. In other words, unlike The One, Palin doesn't behave like she's The One. She behaves like she's just another American, which is probably why so many people identify with her.

See, the problem with Obama is he is the presidential candidate, and he became the candidate by giving vague HopeNChangey speeches that sent his followers into a pentacostal-style trance (except that they don't believe in the Holy Spirit, so there's no way they could be filled with it). And he believed his own rhetoric, offering nothing else.

But Sarah Palin is not the presidential candidate. She's a V.P. candidate. She's not campaigning for commander in chief, no matter how hard the Obamabots try to make her. And people appreciate the fact that she's not all caught up in her own publicity.