Based on the debate watching parties that I covered last Friday here in the blue bastion of greater Los Angeles, let me caution everyone not to place much stock on Sarah Palin's performance tonight. If she has magically morphed into a master of stateswomanship, that may lift her party's sagging morale. But sudden transformations in times of crisis are apparently not playing well in the heartland. Not only that, but with every snappy little saying she utters, tens of thousands of Obama supporters are newly mobilized into action. Talk about a recruiting poster for the other side. What was it, ten million dollars in 24 hours that her oddly spiteful speech at the Republican Convention earned for Obama-Biden?
I know, I know, with all this uncertainty, everyone thinks the debate tonight has the potential to shift the momentum once again. I disagree. Are we that crazy yet? I don't think so. In fact, I would argue that tonight is not the main event but a sideshow that will only solidify where everyone already is. But for the sake of the Circus we have to keep on watching -- because God forbid we go look at the madness in Iraq, Afghanistan and what's happening to our veterans -- let's put tonight in context of where we've been for the last few weeks.
From the moment that the iconoclastic Sarah Palin -- I'm being kind -- was scorched like a lightning bolt into our psyches, the anxiety levels among friends, family and colleagues rose to all-time highs. Oh yeah, she was a game changer, but with unintended consequences. All the energy stirred up in Denver by the big bright white light of Obama's Hope and Change had super-collided with the darker, much less powerful but still destructive forces of McCain-Palin's religious chant of Drill, Drill, Drill. The assault charged the atmosphere so dramatically nature itself responded with city-swallowing hurricanes and panic-driven financial institution wipeouts.
Even in the laid-back little beach town of L.A.'s somewhat blue South Bay area where I've been active in Democratic politics for years, tempers started to flare as battlelines were drawn. A native of Tennessee, I found some of the vitriol alarming - an echo of rhetoric used in my home state to incite the Civil War. Then came the backfire of McCain's stunt last week of suspending his campaign in the midst of our country's economic freefall, like the Confederacy in its last throes. All of sudden, everyone snapped out of the past and came back into the present - where we found ourselves all stuck amid the same wreckage left by the last eight years, all staring at the same stark choice between the future or more of the same. This is the only question that is now at the heart of this election; everything else is chatter.
Going into tonight's VP debate, it may be telling that here in California larger venues have been secured to accommodate growing numbers of pro-Obama voters who watched last week's presidential debate together. Though I live in the suburban South Bay, last week I had decided to check out the main action "in town" (as those of us down in the beach burbs refer to anywhere north of the 10 freeway), at a cool-sounding place called "The Joint." Co-hosted by LA for Obama and L.A. County Young Democrats, the event was promoted on Facebook, successfully enough that by the time I hit the road it had received a respectable 57 "yes" RSVPs - most of whom looked from their photos to be decidedly young. That was a good thing, I figured, since many of us are wondering whether this group will really turn out to vote in numbers needed for an Obama victory next month.
As I pulled up to The Joint on Pico Boulevard, ten minutes into the debate, I saw almost no activity outside on the street - save for a small blue sign in the window that said "Change." My heart sank. I thought of all the times during the Kerry campaign that our various ragtag bands of activists had received wild enthusiasm to requests for volunteers, only to be met with disappointing turnout. With expectations thus lowered, I approached the club and braced myself for what could be as few as twenty or so actual debate-watchers. Oh me of little faith. Hope sprang anew as I entered the club and was greeted by the most beautiful sight - nearly 200 debate watchers, most standing, some sitting on the floor, others at booths and tables, all silent, as though waiting for a jury's pronouncement of life or death. The demographics appeared to be right out of the Denver convention - from late teens, to college students, middle aged and senior citizens, singles and couples, mixed income levels, mixed ethnicities, straight, gay, and decline to state. The mix of local old timer activists and Team Obama newbies - problematic in some places - was working just fine.
Mid-way through the debate, passing boredom set in. The strange thing that everyone seemed to recognize was that the old guy actually sounded more coherent than he had in a long time. And yet, even though by most measures he should have been winning the debate, he was going down in flames. Was it the smirk? The canned lines? The contempt, the twitching eye? Couldn't he have made a phony attempt to pander to us blue-staters? Did he really think name-dropping Kennedy and Lieberman would make us believe he could ever cross party aisles again? After the debate was over, I instant polled everyone who would talk to me, asking "who won?" Without hesitation, everyone answered, "Obama."
The organizer of the event, Sabra Gandhi, was the first to admit that we were all too biased to judge the winner. Nonetheless, there was an unspoken feeling that our guy, our hero, had catapulted over what may be his last hurdle. From here on out, it was all going to be ground-game. Toward that end, Sabra told me she had far surpassed her goal of providing a good atmosphere in which to watch the debates, raise a little money for the Obama campaign, and have a decent showing in terms of numbers that could be turned into active volunteers. "I was both amazed by the turnout, the enthusiasm and the generosity," she e-mailed me, after tallying the $2000 in donations the event had raised. Sabra hopes ambitiously to build substantially on that progress tonight at the V lounge in Santa Monica (2020 Wilshire Boulevard) where she expects to double attendance.
Back in the South Bay, similar numbers-raising is promised tonight at the Democratic Action Center in Old Town Torrance. Last week's event filled up Mr. Pockets in Manhattan Beach - an event covered by my friend Jeryll Adler who applauded organizer Tony Hale's "meet and greet" and his sign-in sheet that "asked us every which way but loose what we are game to do for the campaign going forward, including giving money."
Obama Team Leader Jon Walls of the South Bay Democratic Action Center also reports a surge of walk-in volunteers fired up by last week's debate. There is nothing in all of this to suggest that tonight will do anything to dampen what teeth-gnashing, chest-pumping right-wingers love to mock in us as Palin Derangement Syndrome.
Couple that with the fact that Sarah Palin's handlers (who are really what we should most fear, not her) are sending her into our house - oh yes, right here in Carson, California on Saturday - and you can imagine the protest brewing.
One more prediction that I'd like to make, as a native Southerner and as someone who has met Joe Biden and come to admire him immensely, is that he knows one thing that it seems the McCain-Palin team has completely rejected - manners count. Biden may make a gaffe or two and he can let loose too much with his "verbage" (Palin's big word), but he is a true gentleman. He knows how to dis McCain without insulting his supporters. They don't teach that at Sean Hannity school.
Some may say this is the slant of a partisan living in a deep blue state, but take a look at the polls. Better yet, if you're worried, go sign up to do something good for your country and elect President Obama and Vice President Biden. It's hard not to be fearful, especially after coming so close with the Kerry campaign which many of us believe was stolen - not just in Florida again and in Ohio, but with machinations that padded the popular vote in red states like Tennessee (where funny stuff is still happening y'all and may have happened in 2000 to undo Al Gore). But don't let fear cripple you because if you're not in the battle this time, it's your fault if we falter.
As a memo to Governor Palin who can see Russia from Alaska but has spent no time looking at other states in America, it may be instructive for her to know why are we so blue here in Cali. It's pretty simple. It's because we're both tolerant and diverse, and because we prefer doing business with each other, rather than scapegoating and witchhunting those who are different from us. We actually find celebrating wolf slaughter to be horrific. And for someone who is supposed to be an energy expert, it may be helpful to know that we find it unseemly that she openly opposes science and is also a proclaimed opponent of the environment. Why we are blue is that we are historically forward thinking - as every American must be now to survive. We've seen the future, because we're there already, and as a message back to the past, we're glad to tell you that we're here, rolling up our sleeves and rebuilding our country with President Barack Obama