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Wednesday, October 29. 2008
Twit(ter)
Just signed up on Twitter. Now I can “tweet.” Which is different that “tooting,” which, 20 years ago, meant snorting cocaine, before that having a “toot” meant having a drink and even more old timey (and I like this one best!) to pass gas. Expel gastric excess! Fart!Do you tweet? Is there a purpose to Twitter? On a news program, can’t remember which, one of the commentators mentioned using Twitter while on the campaign trail covering one of the candidates. So, whilst looking for Sarah Palin’s exhortation, “I’m Jo mama!” I came across a Twitter comment about the Palin comment.
Think the Alaskan hockey mom uses Twitter? I wouldn’t doubt it. People have wasted careers underestimating Sarah Palin, as pointed out in an article by Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard. The hockey mom, who just happens to be the governor of Alaska and shops at a second hand, consignment store called Out of the Closet, is as shrewd a politician as any. Dare I say, Sarah Palin IS the next Ronald Reagan?
As many Palin supporters have said, Palin is the future of the Republican Party, hence the long knives coming out of the McCain campaign closet to stab her in the back.
John McCain was nowhere before the Republican National Convention. Every pundit, conservative, liberal and independent alike, saw the November election as a foregone conclusion and it didn’t bode well for John McCain. He would become, many thought, yet one more Arizona senator to run for president and fail. To his great delight, McCain was being compared to Barry Goldwater, who lost in his bid for the Republican nomination to Richard Nixon in 1960 and then lost the presidency to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Does any candidate really want to be compared to someone who failed to win the election — twice?
Goldwater is an icon of American politics and really is as revered as Reagan when it comes to conservatives, so to be mentioned in the same sentence as Goldwater could send a shiver up your leg, to channel Chris Matthews.
McCain was on his way to losing the election before the Republican National Convention. Obama was in a double-digit lead over his Republican opponent, the Republican base was turning its collective back on McCain and the radio talk machines had all but condemned McCain to Hell in the months before the convention.
What McCain needed was a “Hail Mary,” something so bold, so unexpected, so … so … unconservative … it energized not just the conservative base, it jolted the electorate at large to get out and support and elect John McCain president … or at least make it a competitive race once again.
So, in the bowels of whatever passed for RNC headquarters in St. Paul, MN, the masters of the Republican Party sat McCain down — maybe even in a threatening way, like he was going to be water boarded again — and gave him the low down; “these are your choices — neither Joe Lieberman or Tim Pawlenty are on the list — pick one or forget any help getting elected president.”
I’m just guessing at the actual dialogue.
So here was this young, beautiful, perky governor of Alaska. She had one of those high-pitched voices that you either love or hate and she had the ability to connect to people — voters to be exact — just by stepping on a stage and giving the crowd a smile. Given McCain’s history of marital infidelity, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he fantasized boffing her on the campaign plane during some long, cross-country trip. “Note to self: Schedule campaign stops in New Hampshire for the A.M. and Oregon for the P.M.!” — John McCain.
Never mind that she said a few months before she wouldn’t accept if asked unless someone could tell her what a vice president’s duties include, but Sarah Palin was on that list.
It would be interesting to know who else was on that list.
So, with maybe a touch of lust in his heart — it would be in mine — he picked his “Hail Mary,” someone with a different Biblical name, much older than that of the mother of Jesus: Sarah. The Republican base went wild! The conservative radio talk machine did flips — can you visualize Rush Limbaugh doing a triple back flip — and the press went, “Whaaa …?”
Everyone scrambled to find out everything possible about Governor Sarah Palin. First thing we found out was that she had this “Trooper-gate” problem.
I must fess up, two months ago I decided she wouldn’t be on the ticket at this point in the campaign. I under-estimated the governor. Mea Culpa.
Then we found out she has five kids, a husband who races “snow machines” and was once a member of a political organization dedicated to having Alaska secede from the United States. Her eldest daughter, only 17 and unmarried, was pregnant and her eldest child, a son name Track, was about to head off with his unit to Iraq.
Good for him. Hope he returns safely with his unit.
Her youngest son was born with Down’s Syndrome. She understood the needs of people, children, categorized as “special needs.”
Sarah Palin was everything John McCain and the Republican power masters had hoped. The base energized and by the end of the convention, John McCain was leading in the polls. The Republicans were back on top once again. And all this because of an attractive governor from America’s most isolated state. One might say they owe her — big.
Now, less than a week away from the election, they—the McCain campaign—have been reduced to calling her names, all behind the cloak of anonymity. They called her a “diva” and a “whack job.” There is even this story that McCain snubbed her on the campaign bus—in front of the press.
Is this how McCain wants his campaign to end? Not just losing, but throwing the person he picked, the woman who saved his campaign from being just another replay of Goldwater 1964 (or worse yet: Mondale 1984) under the bus?
Without Sarah Palin, John McCain would already be just a footnote; and this is how he and his surrogates treat her. Pretty sad really. Hard to believe I’m defending Sarah Palin. She really did say, “I am Jo Mama!” Truthfully though, it was just campaign chatter about all the “Joe the Plumber” references she’s seen since the Plumber made his appearance.
No surprise, Joe Wurzelbacher is campaigning for McCain-Palin in Ohio.
That’s not really controversial, nor is the continuing saga of the $150,000.00 wardrobe. We should let it go. There is so much more we should talking about when it comes to Sarah Palin the national political figure: her views on the separation of church and state, foreign policy, domestic policy, Supreme Court nominees and judicial philosophy. Clothes and her joyous pronouncements to her faithful fans, not such important topics.
Just as important is this: Twitter, I found out, could be used for terrorist activities because of its real time messaging. Really? It rolls too fast for me. The Army did a study on instant messaging and Twitter, which can be used via a cell phone, lets users communicate — send “tweets” — to friends and like-minded individuals almost instantaneously. Who knew!The evidence this is possible was this: “Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others …” And the study said protestors at the Republican National Convention used it to avoid police. Now that’s funny!
But I’m old, and as we know, old people don’t “get” new technology until we actually start using it. Well, now I’m using it and … let’s see what happens. Any fellow malcontents wanna send me a toot? I mean Tweet?
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