The Palin Picture --

The picture is blurry because few can figure out what we actually saw and heard from this unprecedented candidate.  In Sarah Palin we saw a perky face and fascile manner, we heard a torrent of regurgitated words,  and we felt tired out at the end of the experience.  The woman is exhausting. . . and terrifying.  We would be in for some very scary times ahead if she were somehow to get elected.

Figuring out the Palin debate picture will take some effort but help is available.  We would have been well served to read this great pre-debate post, "Palin Debate Preview: The Primer," put together by Kagro X at Daily Kos.  The Reaction's founder and editor, Michael J.W. Stickings wrote a dynamite post that is a must read for anyone who missed the Veep debate, or for anyone who wants to relive it: "Show me the veeps: Live-blogging the Biden-Palin debate." Following the blog post is a very interesting extensive comment thread with most of them posted in real time, including good contributions by his sidekick, "Creature."

Palin meets expectations but still falls short," was the Palin performance assessment by John Harris and Mike Allen at Politico.com:

"she got out alive, though there were white-knuckle moments along the way: questions that were answered with painfully obvious talking points that betrayed scant knowledge of the issue at hand, and sometimes little relevance to the question that had been asked."

What we saw, after an extremely difficult* couple of weeks, was that much of the media extended Palin an unusually generous expectation of success ahead of time. Far too many offer sympathy#, in spite of her occasional breath-taking ignorance#.  The spectacle makes us wonder, just what does her candidacy say about America#?  There are obviously reasons for her Republican support#.  This helpful little blurb is from my (10/2/08) Congressional Quarterly-Behind the Lines, by David C. Morrison.  To quote:

 Philadelphia Bulletin fire-breather Herb Denenberg opines that Sarah Palin “has already demonstrated more leadership on foreign policy know-how and savvy than the entire Democratic party leadership put together,” and Democracy Arsenal posits “five national security hurdles Governor Palin must clear.”

Governor Palin generates a good deal of vocal opposition -- Palin is not 100% popular* in Alaska, nor with# all conservatives. And she is not exactly* out of trouble in Alaska yet.  Add in this regarding Sarah Palin's church's view on cause and effect from Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish (9/3/08), on anti jewish terrorism#, and you have a pretty scary picture.

As I said at the outset, it is the communicator's responsibility to be understood.  What I do understand, not because Palin wants it this way, is that Governor Palin is not nearly qualified to be the POTUS.  Nor is she qualified to be the VEEP-POTUS.  Let us let her serve out her term as the Governor of Alaska.  They elected her; we are not required to do so also.

Miscellaneous Election References:

• On the cell-phone factor in polling,* as well as here#.
• Time Magazine feature on negative advertising#.
  
• What makes people vote Republican?*
  

Hat Tip Key: Regular contributors of links to leads are "betmo*" and Jon#.

View my current slide show about the Bush years -- "Millennium" -- at the bottom of this column.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

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