I like a good cliché. If I had a quarter for every time someone in my family rolled his or her eyes when I used a cliché I'd be a rich woman. Oops, there I go again. (Is "there I go again" another cliché?) So when Sarah Palin talks about her conversations with Todd at their kitchen table I get it. I've sat at kitchen tables very much like the one she describes and had similar conversations. I can't actually see Alaska or Russia from the kitchen window of my grandparents' home in Calumet, Michigan, but I doubt if the perspective from that window is much different than the one from the Palin's kitchen window.
I appreciate the ease with which Sarah asks Senator Biden if she can call him Joe. I believe Sarah (I hope it's ok if I call her by her first name too) means it when she says God bless them, or him, or the troops, or whatever. I thought Sarah looked GREAT last night. I loved her suit, loved the way she braided her hair in the back, it looked to me as if she has lost weight (I wish I could lose some weight so quickly). And was Sarah wearing new glasses? They were very cool. I bet I would get a kick out of having a conversation with Sarah at a picnic on Maple Lake in my hometown of Paw Paw, Michigan. I can understand why a whole lot of people who grew up in small town America, just as I did, would and do really, really like Sarah Palin. But please, oh great white hunters of the Republican leadership, did you think we were morons? Don't underestimate us ;-)
And that's why I'm proud to be from Michigan today. That's why I'm proud that folks in Michigan, folks who probably like Sarah Palin a whole lot, aren't going to vote for her. These folks understand that the people we need to run this country are those who have experience, common sense and vision. They understand we need people who will lead us toward change. Sarah Palin? She seems very nice, but she just don't fit the bill (another cliché? Ah jeez . . . ).
McCain's campaign looked at the Michigan polls and came up short (you betcha!). The McCain/Palin ticket couldn't pull the numbers to win Michigan so they pulled up stakes and moved out (cliché?). Onto someplace else that they may be able to win like North Dakota - that's where Fargo is. One way or another, the people of Michigan let the GOP ticket know that no matter how much they like Sarah Palin (she's cute as a bug in a rug!), no matter how much she may remind them of the girl next door (wink!), no matter how much they respect her commitment to the military and empathize with the challenges her family is going through, the people of the great state of Michigan are not going to vote for Sarah Palin and John McCain.
Maybe in the last Presidential election there were voters who were swayed by the fact that they liked George Bush -- by the fact that they wanted to have a beer with him. But not in this election. This time around, just liking someone is not gonna be enough. At least not in Michigan.