Wake Up, America! -- The Morning After America's Blind Date with Sarah Palin

Has a huge portion of the American populace gone insane?

Periodically in American history, large numbers of people succumb to mass delusion. We are currently experiencing such a time.

After a Republican National Convention that culminated with one of the worst acceptance speeches in American history, John McCain has gotten a big bump in the polls.

Why? Almost entirely, it seems, because McCain chose as his running-mate someone about whom most Americans know almost nothing, whose views on most of the issues about which Americans care the most are opposite to those of a majority of Americans, whose experience to prepare her for the presidency is so inadequate that the Republican campaign is reduced to mentioning that she belonged to the PTA and that her state is close to Russia.

WTF?

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According to a just-released USA Today-Gallup Poll, white women have moved from favoring Barack Obama by 8 points before John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate to backing John McCain by 12 points. Majorities of white women, this poll reports, say his choice of Palin increases their faith in McCain's decisions.

I repeat: WTF?

How far are the American people willing to go on a first, blind date?

Unless McCain has slipped Rohypnol into the drinks he served the electorate last week, newly infatuated and intoxicated voters ought have enough of their wits about them to know they don't want to give themselves up to a candidate with whom they completely disagree:

■ Most Americans want health insurance for everyone.
Sarah Palin opposes it.

■ Most Americans are not biblical literalists.
Sarah Palin is. In spades.

■ Most Americans favor a woman's right to choose in abortion.
Sarah Palin wants to outlaw ALL abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.

■ Most Americans favor environmental protections and understand that global warming is largely caused by human activity.
Sarah Palin doesn't.

■ Most Americans believe the findings of science.
Sarah Palin doesn't.

■ Most Americans do not think Tim LaHaye's "End Times" with millions of non-Christians drowning in rivers of blood while Jesus cheers are upon us.
Sarah Palin does.

■ Most Americans disagree with most of what has happened during the last eight years and with George W. Bush.
Sarah Palin is Bush's more-evil fraternal twin.

Americans need to get out of bed with this candidate, quickly, while their virtue is still intact.

The time has come for us to stop people we meet on the street and ask them, "Are you more likely to vote for the Republican ticket because John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running-mate?"

Every time someone answers, "yes" or "maybe," grab him or her by the shoulders and shake (gently), saying, "Wake up! Do you know anything about her?"

"Unless you are a member of the extreme "Christian" Right, you agree with Sarah Palin on almost nothing and you would be crazy to support her and McCain. (If you are a member of the extreme "Christian" Right, you are crazy, but, unlike most Americans, you are someone who logically should love Palin.)"

{Historian Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts & Letters at Millsaps College. His latest book is Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America .}

Comments

[justjojo]

Mr. McElvaine: WORD!!!

[JustifiablyParanoid]

WHY does this surprise anyone?! This country picked the dolt sitting in the Oval Office because they wanted to have a damn beer with him....

For pity's sake, we're surrounded by dunderheads, who choose the only people they can possibly relate to -- dunderheads. Problem is, the dunderheads they elect are backed by the mighty buck, so you know they've got actual (evil) minds pulling the strings....

[Karisma]

Te devil comes in many forms!

[okwassup]

Women have been flocking to Sarah Palin as if she's a contestant on AMERICAN IDOL, saying they like her because she's "perky" or "has spunk". HUH??? Is this how you pick the potential next President of the U.S.?????

Men have been flocking to Sarah Palin because they think she's a babe.

Both are the WRONG reasons for how you pick the next leader of the free world.

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

[hopeless277]

The Republicans(Karl Rove) have taken a figurtive beauty contest and turned it into an actual beauty contest. America loves beauty contests.

[myrddin]

It's not just the women that are falling over themselves for Palin. Look at the polls. It's the men too. We'd better hope that the MSM keeps reporting the truth about Palin so they'll wake up before election day.

[johnwinner]

Americans believe in being simple-minded. Like the Germans of 1932, the want leaders who will keep them out of politics. Faith in Palin is indeed religious in nature; although most Americans are not fundamentalists, they do have a vague but powerful fasith that 'god will not let things get so bad that they can't get good again;' on these bases, they feel safe in ignoring issues and vote 'the better liar' in every campaign. The cynical Karl Rove knows this, and knows that it also means the Republicans can rig the voting in key states and get away with it - stolen elections are apolitical events, a big-top show at the circus, which distracts voters' attention from the disasters in their lives while they wait for god to make everything better.
My mother believed this until the day she died - and things never got better, she died heavily in debt with no friends and little family. Just before going into a coma from aspiration pneumonia, her last words were "I'm just a poor old woman after all."
Democrats seem unable to grasp this and work with it. Yesterday Hillary Clinton reiterated that voters make a decision after think through the issues - what a laugh! And to the extent that the Clintons do understand this issue, a cynical laugh at that.

[djarvis]

Right on! It's as if many women are interested in Palin ONLY because she's a woman. She doesn't even agree with the equal pay for equal work bill. She doesn't stand for any of the issues Hillary Clinton supports. It seems that some of the guys like her just because she is attractive. I hate to see so many shallow sheep! People need to pay attention to what this woman believes because the thought of her as president scares me to death.

[LetMeUnderstandThis]

AMERICANS are STUPID! remeber 2004!? Prove me wrong!!

1) Register
2) Vote

[RoveRoveRoveYourBoat]

3) Spell remember

[coffee1900]

ABC did some "edited" presentation of YouTube film clips re Sarah Palin religion on the a.m. program. The took out all the "far out" parts and left in some real reassuring segments that make her sound middle of the road -- the kind of religious views no one is likely to find objectionable.

THIS LOOKS LIKE THE PREFACE FOR CHARLIE GIBSON! Their manipulation seeks to defuse some pretty inflammatory, extreme views. I'm outraged. Reputable journalists need to call them on it. Talk about manipulative, selective editing!

[hopeless277]

Name one 'reputable journalist'.

[Kassandra]

Rove pulled another goody out of his sack of poison with this unlikely pick! Everyone is projecting onto her 'cause they don't know her. And they picked her so late that we may never come out of the fog until she's sitting in Bush's Chair.
Reuters has this to say this morning. frankly, I can't believe it! : Poll shows big shift to McCain among white women

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN097920080909

[disgustedcitizen]

I have, over the last eight years, come to the conclusion that the American people are the stupidest group on the face of the earth. This instant love affair with Sarah Palin is a case in point. When I saw the news last night that McCain/Palin were now ahead of Obama/Biden I feared the worst was coming. Once again, this country is going to screw itself by voting for 'the guy I'd most like to have a beer with".

God, help this country if McCain is elected. I, for one, will be looking to move to Canada.

[LilyK]

Only in this case, it's the gal I'd most like to be raptured with.

[burndtdan]

Time for America to have it's coyote ugly moment.

[dagnew]

I'm really, really, scared that the voters are going to get it wrong again. I don't understand the lack of common sense in this country! I'm sixty years old, and can survive the idiocy of all this, but I worry about my grandkids. What in the h e l l are we leaving to future generations? I'm really sick at heart. The next 60 days are going to take forever! The world is watching and waiting..............

[Sciguy]

I wish Obama would stop making speeches saying that the American voter is not stupid. The American voter IS stupid (Bush I + Bush II + Bush II = stupid). I did like the sound bite in which Obama said something like "you can't make stuff up" except for one thing - the Republicans can, and do, make stuff up.

Howzabout an ad that shows McCain and/or Palin actually saying one of their lies, then documenting (by a reporter or better yet, by someone on FOX) that it's a lie? At the end of that commercial, Obama could just say "Quit making stuff up! ENOUGH!"