I was watching TV-13(WZZM)’s coverage of Sarah Palin’s visit to Grand Rapids tomorrow. Oh, I mean John McCain and Sarah Palin.
WZZM’s coverage of the visit focused more on Sarah Palin, and in fact pointed out how focused everyone has been on Sarah Palin. They report how people are relating to Palin more as a person than as a politician. They have “man on the street” interviews with middle-aged ladies saying “I’m a woman, she’s a woman” and then a bearded sixty year old man says, “I’m a hunter, she’s a hunter.” Young voters chime in about last week’s Saturday Night Live sketch with Tina Fey. Not a word is mentioned about John McCain’s plan for our country or what his policies would be on the most popular issues.
Unfortunately, we’ve been neglected the chance to hear more about the kind of person Barack Obama is—he’s already been branded a politican. And of course Sarah Palin, who has held her office as Governor for all of a year and a half, has hardly had time to’ve become a full-fledged politician. Although the leap to Veep seems awfully suspicious. I can’t think of anything that sounds more like “politician” than “Vice President”. Other than maybe, well, “President John McCain” of course.
WZZM’s story barely even acknowledged McCain, only mentioning his name once when poking fun at a woman who came to pick up her “Sarah Palin tickets”. Sarah Palin may be new to national politics, but John McCain isn’t. He’s been in Congress for twenty-six years. I spell that out the long way because it’s a long time. Maverick or no, he’s the epitome of a politician: the Ted Kennedy of the GOP.
To distract us from that fact, Sarah Palin plays our Marilyn Monroe. And I’m afraid that this distraction with Palin could be drug out for too long, and this election will be more about daytime talk show appearances than it is about real issues and the future of our country.
Something needs to happen, and it needs to be done in the next few days, not weeks. I think perhaps it should be a big character piece with Barack Obama, reminding America about about his story, his rise from below. Then I’d like to see some short pieces about every day people who are struggling today, and how Barack Obama’s plan would make the most difference. It wouldn’t have to be long, maybe forty five minutes of television. The kind of thing you could put on Oprah between commercials.
