DNC wrap-up, and McCain's political gamesmanship

I was planning to write a long catch-up post about all of the events of the DNC, including a rave review of Obama's speech last night. It was reminiscent of both Kennedy and King, and it was beautiful and moving. When Obama stated his intent to free America from its dependence on foreign oil within 10 years, I got goose bumps. It reminded me of Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon in 10 years, and he did it in 9. I watched Obama's speech with my friend M and her son K, and afterwards we sat around talking about it. One thing that impressed all of us was the efforts Obama made to include those who may hold differing political views, emphasizing that we all have to come together to create meaningful, lasting change. Obama is all about relationship-building and collaborative effort, which is precisely what we need to heal the red-blue divide and move forward as one nation. It's like taking a restorative approach to politics, which is groundbreaking in itself.

Biden's speech on Wednesday night was also quite thrilling and emotional. I knew Biden has been a loyal Democrat for decades but I didn't know anything about his personal history. I had no idea that he was a widower and raised his kids as a single father for so many years. This gives him a much better perspective on the challenges single parents face, because he doesn't have to imagine - he's been there. One of Biden's sons is about to ship out to Iraq, so this tells me that Biden has a very personal stake in ending the Iraq war as soon as possible and getting US soldiers home safely, because his own kid is one of those soldiers.

This morning, in a blatant attempt to take some of the post-convention wind out of Obama's sails, McCain named his own VP pick: Sarah Palin, current 1st term govenor of Alaska. Here's the lowdown on Palin so far:

• Extremely conservative (duh)
• Staunch right-to-life supporter
• Elected Govenor of Alaska in 2006, prior to that she was mayor of some small town and unsuccessfully ran for Lieutenant Govenor in 2002.
• Got into some hot water over allegations of abusing her authority as Govenor to have her ex-brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper. Claims she did nothing wrong.
• Has 5 kids, the youngest was born with Downs Syndrome.
• Enthusiastic supporter of drilling in ANWR, authorized building a massive pipeline to carry natural gas to Canada.
• Strong supporter of capital punishment.
• Was recently quoted as saying "I'm not sure what a Vice President does, anyway." (Seriously.)
• Supports federal vouchers for private/religious schools.
• 44 years old, 3 years younger than Obama, 28 years younger than McCain.

At first glance it looks like Palin is a female figurehead, selected to appease disgruntled Hillary supporters who may still be nursing a bad case of sour grapes and may consider the ultimate in political spiteful acts - voting for McCain. It's pandering, pure and simple. She's a face, an image, a powerless image that McCain hopes to use to draw voters to his camp by parading her out like some sort of arm candy.

So now we know the players in this race. Obama and Biden, a powerhouse of a team combining Obama's energy, hope and creativity with Biden's experience and foreign policy expertise. Obama and Biden compliment each other well, and both have an everyman quality about them that says they're not so far removed from real America that they can't understand and relate to what ordinary citizens are going through.

On the other hand we have McCain and Palin, a Bush clone and his Genie, ready to say "Yes, Master". McCain has repeatedly criticized Obama for lacking experience, yet McCain selects a running mate with far less experience. Palin's political experience is about two steps up from student body president. She's had zero experience with national level politics and foreign policy. So what qualified her to be VP? Two x-chromosomes and an extremely conservative political record. That's it. Fini.

I hope the few remaining disenfranchised Hillary supporters are not fooled by this blatant attempt to win their votes by parading a complacent, tractable female candidate before them like she's a contestant in the Miss America pageant. Come on, folks - Hillary herself asked if the choice of candidates was about the issues or about her, and urged her supporters to get behind Obama's campaign. She was beautifully eloquent in her speech on Tuesday night, and I can only hope that her supporters will take her words to heart and come together in a show of party unity, to vote for change instead of more of the same failed Bush policies, to take our country forward into the 21st century with new technologies and fuels instead of continuing to pollute our environment and bankrupt our citizens by continuing our reliance on fossil fuels, to provide health care for all instead of for the few, to bring our proud soldiers home instead of asking more of them to lay down their lives for Bush/McCain's pet war.

Peace,

Auntie M