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All Palin, All The Time

Let’s face it, people, the world is getting a crash course in all things Sarah Palin.

It’s been less than a week since this super hot hockey mom turned political reformer was named as John McCain’s vice presidential pick - and less than forty-eight hours since the world learned her 17-year-old daughter was having a baby.

Glancing at Google News, there have been literally hundreds of thousands of articles written about the first-term Alaska governor - within the last five days.

And needless to say, some of us have been a little too busy fantasizing about Palin (a process we started over a month ago) to assess the impact she’s had on the presidential election.

Our girl Mande weighed in with her thoughts earlier this week, but it’s obviously taking some time for our founding editor to stop staring at her (long) legs long enough to form a coherent thought.

Anyway, to say Palin’s impact on the race has been seismic is to court an award for understatement of the young millennium. It’s been much more than that.

To McCainiacs, she’s the greatest Vice-Presidential pick in history. To Obamicons, she’s the worst.

To Obamicons, she’s woefully inexperienced. To McCainiacs, she’s more experienced than Obama.

And as for the fact that she’s about to become a grandmother (although not in the way social conservatives would typically want to become grandmothers), the gap of opinion on that stickiest of all wickets is likewise as obsequious as it is oceanic.

To McCainiacs, Palin’s bombshell is proof that their man is willing to do the right thing in spite of political convention. To Obamicons, it’s proof McCain is not above exploiting even a teenage pregnancy.

So … which end is up? What’s the truth in this topsy-turvy world of a woman most of us had never heard of five days ago?

Let’s start by categorically dismissing the fringe emotion that Palin’s selection/ revelation have generated amongst the chattering classes of pre-formed political opinion.

For example, we’ve already been blasted for failing to call on Palin to withdraw from the race based on her daughter’s pregnancy.

Apparently, our rather pointed criticism of former presidential candidate John Edwards - who stayed in the Democratic race despite his wife’s recurrence of cancer - should now be directed at Palin for bailing on her daughter in a time of need.

Well, the last time we checked having a baby wasn’t usually fatal. And besides, it’s technically not the grandmother’s job to raise the child - as anybody who’s tried to land an emergency babysitter on a weekend can probably tell you.

Having said that, maybe it’s just the age of Juno and Jamie Lynn Spears, but the taboo of teenage girls getting pregnant has been dramatically demystified, deconstructed and determined to be not as big a deal as it used to be - even as it was a year ago.

It’s honestly not unlike the peace Democrats have made with themselves over welfare babies.

Social conservatives may still shudder at the notion of premarital sex, but our guess is that more than a few of them have parented some promiscuous kids of their own. And besides, Palin’s daughter is pulling a Madonna and “keeping her baby,” which will no doubt endear her to the pro-life crowd McCain has always struggled to win over.

As if all that weren’t enough, social conservatives are notoriously hypocritical and would probably forgive Palin for anything short of hijacking Obama’s Messiah complex, because that would be blasphemous, obviously.

But the question remains, at the end of the day, does Palin help or hurt McCain?

You know, that’s just it … for all the talking heads on TV, the hundreds of thousands of analysis-happy articles, the carefully-crafted statements and over-wrought strategic surreptitiousness surrounding both campaigns, the answer to that question ultimately boils down to something that might surprise you … Sarah Palin’s ability.

Wait, say what?

Look, people. Democratic veep pick Joe Biden is certainly an asshole, but our guess is he’s no slouch in a debate.

Palin will, quite simply, either sink or swim when she goes up against him - as for that matter she will sink or swim whenever she finds herself confronted with any of the dozens of other potentially pernicious pitfalls she’ll face over the next two excruciatingly over-scrutinized months of her life.

She’ll get some benefit of the doubt, to be sure, but not much.

And that’s the amazing thing about the American electorate.

As much as politicians enjoy talking down to us and launching meaningless rhetoric completely over our heads (and as much as the media enjoys sensationalizing and polarizing people’s reaction to the politicians - particularly when it has nothing to do with governing), there’s a missing ingredient to the whole Palin phenomenon.

Come election day, millions of people will cast ballots without caring that Sarah Palin is a woman, or attractive, or has a daughter who got knocked up.

Simply put, they’ll vote on whether she sank or swim in the only area that counts - her skills.

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