Thursday, October 02, 2008

Freak Show

The question is -- have the American public had their fill of fake "jest plain folks" type candidates for the highest office in the land? Why the fear of voting for someone with actual intelligence? The need to elect someone you'd like to have a beer with or go wolf-hunting from a helicopter?

As in any debate, the winner will always be selected in terms of style over substance. Palin managed to lose on both accounts tonight. From the perspective of this acting teacher, she displayed an inability to hide the coaching. Her technique was showing, as they say in the business. You could see her mentally counting to three before turning to the camera and going into her memorized folksy inanities.

The format worked for her tactic, which was to not actually answer the questions but instead turn to the camera to deliver set speeches that had been pre-tested and carefully wrought by her handlers. Meanwhile, the Republican spinners promised that we would see Sarah let loose to be herself!

I shudder at the very thought of her ensconced in the Oval Office setting policy and making decisions that affect all of us.

Biden was not the main event tonight. All eyes were on the governor of Alaska. He didn't mess up, he didn't promise to expand the powers of the vice presidency. And thank dog for that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said. Someone in my family voted for Bush in 2004 because "he seems like the kind of guy you could have a beer with." I responded that I have plenty of friends to drink with and hoped that the president would be about 40x smarter than me.