Alaska Needs More Hockey Moms, So Send Sarah Palin Back Home to Wassila

By Si Dunn

At the vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin spouted Alaskan "hockey mom" platitudes fast enough to grill moose meat with her breath. And she almost set some new Guinness Book world records for the most times uttering the words "change" and "maverick" in one minute.

The fact that she didn't provide any substantive answers to the debate questions seems to have completely escaped the notice of her rabid fans in the Republican Party. She simply stared into the camera, ignored both the debate moderator and her opponent, and delivered Republican talking points as if they were minor-league sports scores.

No matter. She apparently has a new role, as the GOP's lead attack dog/sled dog. Will Karl Rove now task her to mush as many lies and half-truths as possible into the presidential campaign's final weeks?

If so, she's off to an Iditarod flying start. CBS News' Scott Conroy has reported that at a fundraiser in Denver, Sarah Palin has criticized Barack Obama as "someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Based on her shockingly thin resume, her media-interview blunders and her debate non-performance, it is fair to ask: Aren't the Republicans now palling around with ineptitude on a scale that would immediately endanger the survival of our nation if Sarah Palin becomes Vice President and sits one heartbeat away from taking over as leader of the Free World?

With all due respect, driving kids to hockey games in Wassila, Alaska, does not give someone experience to do anything except...drive kids to hockey games in Wassila, Alaska.

Alaska needs experienced hockey moms much, much more than it needs an utterly unqualified Vice President of the United States. Hopefully, voters will do our great Arctic state a huge favor and send Sarah Palin back home to Wassila next month, so she can get back to her driving.

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Change? What Change? My Seven Houses Can Beat Your House?

By Si Dunn


I will vote Democratic in November, but so far, I'm depressed--not impressed--by the campaigns of "change" mounted by both candidates.


Now the Swift boats are out, firing torpedos at houses. McCain can't remember how many houses he has. Obama has only one house (that cost a million or so). Nyah-nyah-nyah!


It's a battle worthy of an historic new slogan: Damn the torpedoes! Full speed to the bottom!


Things won't change much, of course, after the two candidates announce their vice-presidential picks.


The Swift boats from both sides immediately will fire torpedoes at their houses, too. And any other ridiculous target they can conjure up or invent.


Nothing, so far, has changed in this "historic" campaign of "change."


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Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton (Again!)

By Si Dunn

They both want to serve, and the current predictions are, they each will reach the Democratic Convention with no clear advantage over the other.

So here's the proposal: Let them both serve. It will take both of them to help straighten out the enormous messes that the current Administration will leave behind.

By convention time, whoever has garnered the most delegates should be the candidate for President, and the other one should be willing to run for Vice President. No angry arguments, no bitter backroom deals. Drop the balloons; start the grand speeches.

Glass ceilings will be shattered, greatly minimizing race and gender as future issues in American politics. Two very good political camps will be melded into one unstoppable November steamroller. And both candidates will end up in the White House in positions of leadership, power and influence.

With such an agreement in place and known, Senators Clinton and Obama could stop the negative bombing runs on each other. They could focus harder on giving us their visions for our future and let us simply compare them and decide.

Individually, they are very vulnerable to savage attacks by Republican "swift boats." The GOP's "more of the same, only slightly different" message will not resonate with voters this fall. So the inevitable strategy will be to make endless torpedo runs:

"...And, when Obama was eight years old, he grew fascinated with the changing shapes of clouds and soon became a card-carrying member of the Weather Underground. "

"...And, when Hillary Rodham Clinton was six years old, one of her classmates punched her on the playground, and she cried and started espousing liberal causes. Do you really want a crybaby liberal as Commander in Chief?"

Together as running mates, however, Senators Clinton and Obama would be the Republicans' worst nightmare. The GOP swift boats would steam in and start blasting away at a wide array of targets (both Clinton and Obama do have plenty of baggage that reflects political radar signals). But the swift boats ultimately would sink themselves (and John McCain), because voters quickly would tire of the constant explosions of negativity and just tune out the strident yammerings.

Hope and change. Those are the two main messages that will resonate this fall. John McCain and the Republicans can't offer those visions this time. Together, however, Clinton and Obama can...no matter whose name is listed first on the ticket.

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Democrats for McCain? Few Will Remain

A new poll is raising flags of hysteria and giddiness among some of the political candidates’ supporters and opponents. And once again the media is focusing mainly on how those flags, metaphorically, are rippling and popping in the wind.

We still aren’t being told enough about who the candidates really are, what they really believe, where they get their advice and counsel, how they really define the major issues facing the nation, and why they really think they can make a difference.

According to CNN, a recent Associated Press poll shows that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain are essentially tied, and McCain may be “benefiting from the drawn out Democratic primary race.”

The AP survey also supposedly found that “[c]lose to a quarter of Obama supporters reported they will back McCain if the Illinois senator fails to get the nomination, while a third of Clinton backers said they'd vote Republican if Obama is the Democratic nominee, “ according to the CNN story.

Actually, it’s difficult to believe that that many supporters of Obama and Clinton would throw over either Democrat in favor of at least four more years of rip-off economics, Middle East quagmire, and political stalemate.

In many other news accounts and blogs, there have been numerous reports of Republicans saying they have had absolutely enough of their party’s hard rightward drift and economic decline under Bush-Cheney and see little hope of meaningful change under McCain. They would rather vote for Obama or Clinton than bear any further responsibly for the possibility of a John McBush Administration.

It’s a safe bet that most Democrats who say they will back McCain if their candidate loses are just trash-talking to hear their jaws flap during the run-up to the Democratic Convention. Once their candidate does lose, and they realize it’s the other one vs. John McBush-McCheney, they’ll likely eat their threats and vote, even if grudgingly, for real change.

Yes, it would be something of a change to have an older Caucasian male succeed George W. Bush. Of course, given the history of the American presidency, that would scarcely count as any difference at all.

Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama--either combo would represent the all-time breakaway ticket for change in American presidental politics.

It will take a mega-change like this to start reviving the national economy and, more importantly, the national spirit, in January, 2009.

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