Aquarian Weekly 9/17/08
REALITY CHECK

THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF MCCAIN
Palin Plan Plagiarizes Change Mantra Into Driver's Seat

There is no point ignoring it any longer; John McCain's brief stint as the focal point of the Republican ticket for president of the United States is over. Sarah Palin is in charge now. The polls, the press, the people, and the opposition party's obsession with confronting her at every turn have spoken; it is all Palin all the time. McCain is simply in the way now. It was a magnificently forgettable few weeks, but his party didn't want him in the first place, and this crazy idea that he even represented the slightest reflection of change was always taken as a mild pun anyway. The whole shebang was silly and pathetic and no one bought it and probably weren't going to, which is why Palin is being paraded like a trophy wife across Marshal McLuhan's roadmap. It is Palin, the New Generation Part II, whom we crave. It is Palin we want to see at rallies, hear in interviews, to challenge her resume, her experience and her policies. McCain's role from here on in is nothing more than expensive chaperone.

This is where most columnists would squeeze in the odd I Told You So sentence; but you'll get none of that here. We simply point out once more that this election from Day One has never been about Race, Gender, Economics, War, Poverty, Healthcare, Security, or any other banal subject usually tossed about during these things. It has been and will be, and right now is officially all about generation.

Palin, 44, is the GOP's answer to the nineteen-month birthing of Change emanating from 47 year-old Barack Obama's movement. All of that arduous battling against the Boomer Clinton hordes and entrenched Washington lifers merely set the stage for the quick-fix alternative; the New Coke for the giddy Pepsi Generation: The Monkees for The Beatles, Desperate House Wives for Sex In The City, Spin for Rolling Stone.

Remember a few weeks ago when the McCain Campaign ran that goofy ad portraying Obama as a fabricated amalgam of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears? Well now they have their own Lindsay Lohan/Christina Aguilera model, and suddenly being the sound, conventional, safer choice is dumped with the bath water.

But this could all turn out to be a colossal blunder. Although it tends to get dazzled for the short term, the American voter almost always chooses the entrenched historical imperative of Conservative/Military/White Guy over Liberal/Northern/New Guy (never mind black guy). Palin throes a rusty wrench into all of that, not the least of which is replacing "guy" with "gal", and not to mention putting the Real Deal back into this wishy-washy, flip-flopping, fraudulent load of feces the previous candidate offered up. John McCain used to stand for a sound combination of moderate to social liberalism combined with an interesting dollop of conservative economic restraint, but has since traded the whole mess for a photo-op and a headline. But did it ultimately cost him the presidency?

Loose Canon McCain, who was almost certainly the frontrunner when the dust settled in November even if he had picked a Buick as a running mate, was apparently not exciting enough for those Republicans who were still voting for Mike Huckabee weeks after he bowed out of the race. They needed a newer slice of the Wow. What they got was a whirlwind of equally doled-out manic press exuberance and disdain, celebrity clamoring and Flavor Of The Month histrionics.

But never mind the Longview, this is a quick-fix nation, and for now Palin is its perfect candidate. She didn't have to survive months of vicious attacks from opponents, win/lose a series of tired primaries or bother to speak to actual reporters to defend vacillating positions. Instead she appears out of nowhere smiling facedly, spouting cute aphorisms, and playing the willing victim to Leftist-driven jealous rages and misinterpreted asides. All the while she is impervious to any of it. Florenz Ziegfeld, godfather of American cabaret, once mused, "When you're rolling, Fame & Infamy stand side by side." In other words, "Say what you want, just print a picture and spell my name right" -- the oldest PR axiom in the book.

To Wit: Palin has lied repeatedly and unabashedly about halting the infamous Alaskan Bridge To Nowhere project against which her current running mate once led a crusade, yet by all accounts, including a three-day investigative report by the ultra-Right Wall Street Journal, Palin not only failed to oppose it, she championed it. And by all evidence since, the state she runs has yet to return the nearly $300 million of federal taxes used to pay for what is now universally depicted as a monumental boondoggle.

None of this matters one iota. She is the new Teflon Queen, a Bill Clinton V.2, unable to be impeded by mere rumor or evidence. In fact, like Clinton, as each dart fails to penetrate her armor she grows stronger and more appealing, almost robotically fierce.

But no matter how you slice the Palin phenomenon, John McCain's sad shuffle into the shadows is complete. Watching him smile restively behind his proposed vice president as she laps up the limelight recalls a famous Life magazine photograph of Dean Martin working his way through a mediocre standard while Jerry Lewis is frantically camping it up out front; the older, less-talented Italian crooner expressing both relief and envy that a much younger, far more engaging character was carrying the day. It is the same look Hillary Clinton had those final weeks of the primaries when she was living in a bizarre fantasyland of comebacks. The only difference here is Clinton is yesterday's news and McCain could very well still be president, while Sarah Palin is going to a ribbon cutting at a federal library opening.

And this is wrong, because according to most everyone with a pen and a microphone this puppy is Palin's to win or lose. You can count me among them. There is no turning back for McCain now. He is our wrinkled Garfunkel. Tell me you won't bristle with disappointment when he and not the Gun-Toting, Bible-Thumping Annie Oakley shows up for those debates with Obama.

A candidacy that David Gergen recently described as "bizarre to the point of absurd" has somehow trumped the illusion that Obama could actually run the Electoral map in the ultra-polarized puritanical fop that is the greater United States. Somewhere in the depths of the Republican psyche having the lily white, military vet, was not cutting it. Campaign czar, Steve Schmidt, a Karl Rove lackey -- without all the Gin Martini abuse and chronic masturbation -- concluded that this media blitz from Juneau was the elixir. History will eventually record that it was Schmidt's bright idea to yank the first term governor of the fourth least-populated state in the union; pushing what can best be described as a complete novice on a ticket with a 72 year-old war veteran with an ambiguous medical history.

Some will say that its better to be interesting than good, better to have star power than a sure thing.

Problem is sure things win elections.

Star power goes on the lecture circuit.

That is until this improbable year of historical firsts when at least one Star is on its way to Pennsylvania Avenue.

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