What A Friend We Have In Jesus!

I was just your average hockey mom and signed up for the PTA.

I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.

 

- Sarah Palin

 

With that, the GOP strategy has been revealed. My friends, we moderates and liberals have been given a gift! Praise Jesus!

 

Believe it or not, they have chosen to re-run the 1988 election all over again, with John McCain serving as Bush the Elder, and Sarah Palin as the attack-dog Veep candidate, Dan Quayle.

 

Comparing herself to Harry Truman, Sarah Palin launched a mean spirited, red meat attack on Barack Obama.

 

Quayle compared himself regularly to JFK, thus setting the stage for one of the most memorable lines in American political history, delivered by Lloyd Bentsen.

 

Palin last night: "But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate."

 

Quayle in 1988: "Want to hear a sad story about the Dukakis campaign? The governor of Massachusetts, he lost his top naval advisor last week. His rubber ducky drowned in the bathtub."

 

Palin was chosen in large part because she's young and attractive and John McCain's "soulmate" (his words).

 

Dan Quayle was chosen in large part because he was young and attractive and "Bush, it seemed, had looked in the mirror and found what was most needed in the second-banana role that he had played for eight years: a younger version of himself."

 

Now, in the past I have made comparisons between Barack Obama and Michael Dukakis. Both are competent legislators/administrators. oth come off as emotionless, bloodless drones.

 

It is, however, a mistake to re-run the campaign that Lee Atwater ran in 1988. For one thing, the economy in 1988, while souring, was not in the tanks the way the economy is today. We did not suffer from a major overseas threat, the Soviet Union having dissolved. Indeed, we were wondering how to spend our "peace dividend".

 

And Barack Obama, while sharing some characteristics with Dukakis, is not Mike Dukakis, anymore than Dan Quayle was John Kennedy or Sarah Palin is Harry Truman.

 

Some have called the treatment of Sarah Palin sexist. But it's not any more sexist to ridicule the ridiculous in a dress than it was to ridicule the ridiculous in a suit. The Palin/Quayle parallels are eerie.

 

For one thing, you might recall the name Paula Parkinson. It was alleged that she and Dan Quayle bumped uglies on a golf outing to Florida, where she admitted that she had, um, unduly influenced the social intercourse of the Congressmen on that trip.

 

Apparently, Mrs. Palin too has her indiscretions, according the National Enquirer, the go-to source for the GOP smear machine.  

 

The clear strategy for Obama is simply not to run the same race as Mike Dukakis, something I think he can clearly accomplish. He has far more charisma than Dukakis and a better sense of humour, for two things. More important, he's clearly a smart enough politician to learn from the past.

 

Something Karl Rove and his minions are not.

 

So this will play out in the following manner:

Sarah Palin will energize the base of the Republican party, this is true and this is her ONLY reason for being on the ticket. Expect many many more attacks from her, ranging from the obvious (Rezko) to the idiotic (a governor of Alaska teasing the Democratic candidate about visiting his grandmother in the "exotic" state of Hawaii). She will feed them red meat, and assholes like Michelle Malkin and her orc minion ilk will eat it up.

 

She will also, however, end up energizing the Democratic base as well. She will anger women, but also anger men as well. She will be perceived as a lightweight airhead who once she is taken off-script can't talk her way out of a paper bag with a knife in her hand.

 

Obama, on the other hand, will continue utilizing the gifts he has been given-- eight years of Bush and a smart political team behind him-- and dismantle McCain/Palin on the issues. A bonus at Obama's level is McCain's irascible temper. Combine Palin's aggressiveness and McCain's defensiveness, and you have inarguably the worst ticket ever to run for office, and I include the irritable Bob Dole and the sarcastic Jack Kemp! 

 

Biden will, however, emulate Lloyd Bentsen and remain statesman-like (remember, he was picked to offset some of the inexperience of Obama, which means he will have to keep whatever prickliness he may be tempted to let loose with in check), and occasionally, he will have to pat Palin on the head and say "there, there, dear, you are no Harry Truman".

Now, let's get to work on taking Congress back completely!

 

By the way, if Sarah Palin is as aggressive and protective as a pitbull, how come her daughter's pregnant?