Eat more cookies

On Friday morning, I learned of John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate in a phone conversation with a relative. It went a little like this:

relative: “Pretty exciting, huh?”
me: “What?”
relative: “They finally broke that glass ceiling.”
me: “You mean Obama? Yeah it’s . . . “
relative: “Not Obama – McCain!”
me: “What the hell?”
relative: “I don’t see any way McCain can lose now.”
me: “What the hell?”

Apparently, if you’re on a Fox News IV drip, you completely gloss over the fact that on Thursday night, a black man accepted the nomination for president of one of our two major parties. It’s a sad state of affairs when the conservatives among us do not take the lead of the warm and graceful statements of congratulations issued by their own leaders on this historic occasion. Mike Huckabee’s was especially grounding, and it would’ve been great to see other neo-cons step out of themselves for a moment and reflect on how truly amazing Obama’s selection was.

“So what – we’ve got a woman on the ticket!” seems to be all we got from conservatives over the long weekend. Yes, those progressive Republicans are so forward-thinking that they have finally latched on to an idea that the Democrats pioneered in 1984. Way to go, GOP!

So, we spent a couple of days learning about this mystery woman McCain selected, this Sarah Palin. Republicans say she’s a “maverick” and a “reformer”. Democrats say she’s inexperienced, and it’s a joke to presume this ultraconservative will woo Hillary Clinton supporters simply due to her second X-chromosome.

So I spoke with my parents about all this yesterday. They’re “ethnic Catholics” from Upstate NY. That means they’re lifelong registered Democrats, but they’re also the quintessential “Reagan Democrats”, and I don’t think they’ve voted with the dems since 1976. Sadly, the last time I spoke politics with them, they pretty much admitted that there’s still no way they could vote for a “black guy.” “Oh great” I thought. “We’re stuck in a rut in this country until the Baby Boomers simply die off.”

Imagine my surprise then, when my positively reactionary mother told me yesterday that she was voting Obama this time. I practically fell out of my chair. A Catholic mother of five (just like her) on the GOP ticket, and she’s voting Obama?! Here’s the breakdown . . .

* At 44, Governor Palin is actually younger than my mom’s oldest child. Given how little faith my mom has in my sister’s decision making skills, Mrs. Palin’s youth is actually not an asset.

*My mom’s oldest child has a Master’s degree in education. Governor Palin has a bachelor’s degree in sports journalism or something. Mom is not impressed with Mrs. Palin’s credentials. “Kennedy was young, but he graduated from Harvard, and he was in combat, and his family history was steeped in politics, and . . . you can’t compare.”

*Governor Palin has been in office less than two years, and a good chunk of that time was pregnant with her 5th child, born just this past April, and with Down Syndrome. How can she possibly be an attentive mother to those little kids, especially the baby, while she serves as Vice President?

Then my mom spoke to me about Reagan. She described what is – to some – obvious. The reason Reagan was able to woo so many Democrats from their own party was that he symbolized something – and something good. He made us feel good about being American again – and that was something we collectively had not felt probably since Kennedy’s assassination. Reagan didn’t win because an objective analysis of the policies he proposed demonstrated them to chart a better course for American interest than Carter’s – in fact, time has shown Carter to have been correct! Reagan won because he spoke with vision and passion and he inspired us to reach higher. And we did – for all the problems in his administrations, we did achieve our #1 goal with Reagan: we beat the Russians. . .

In reference to Obama, mom said “This guy’s got it.” By “it” she meant that Reagan quality to lead, to inspire. “Sure I’d like a more conservative ticket,” but she sees Sarah Palin’s selection as the GOP pandering for disaffected Hillary votes, and predicts it’ll backfire big time come November.

From my little corner of the world, Obama has already achieved something that many considered impossible. A major party nomination? No, not that. He’s won my mom’s vote!

Corrections update: 3 September 2008.

As more news of Governor Palin’s background has been made public over the last few days, I’ve noted a couple of errors in my post. First, here is a synopsis of her educational path, from Wikipedia:

“Palin attended Hawaii Pacific College—now Hawaii Pacific University—in Honolulu for a semester in 1982, majoring in Business Administration. She transferred in 1983 to North Idaho College.[11] In 1987,[12] Palin received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism from the University of Idaho, where she also minored in political science.[13][14]“

The other discrepancy concerns her faith. I described her as Catholic, but the only clear indication of her practice these days is that it is “evangelical”. Mrs. Palin was apparently baptized Catholic, but has worshiped most of her adult life in congregations of the “Assemblies of God.” At least this clears up for me her pro-death penalty and anti-evolution leanings, neither of which square with Catholicism.