This election cycle is the finest example yet of the paradoxical maturation of our country. On one side of our personality, we have grown past so many previously entrenched prejudices that we now have a black man running for President and a woman running for Vice President. What a wonderful, visible expression of our ability to grow past hateful biases.
On the other side, we have a system that does its best to destroy the personal character of anyone running for office. Opportunities to lift great leaders from our population are crushed by the personal muck rakers, our holier than thou attitudes about personal “flaws”, insufficient pedigrees and exhorbitant funding only the most wealthy can afford. In our aging process, we have allowed the “news” media to transform itself into the personal marketing arms for whatever candidate aligns most closely to the owner/editorial beliefs.
In thinking about what characteristics are important to me in assessing the people we put into public service, I arrived at a Top 7 in the following order of importance:
Honesty Integrity Displays Good Judgment Representative Hard/Smart Working Strong Intellectual Capacity Experience
I want someone that is human. A person that has the bumps and bruises of a life lived as an ordinary American citizen. A person with flaws, a different kind of education, a feel for the life and issues that face the majority of Americans; frankly, a person that has not been breathing the ether of power in Washington , but instead is put-off by the smell.
Sarah Palin’s record, her persona, and the people that know her absolutely reinforce the fact that she hits it big on every one of the traits on my Top 7.
While I’ll admit I don’t know much about this woman, what I know I like and I like it more as each day passes.
Each day brings some harangue from the dirt divers and it has yet to do anything but reinforce this feeling I get that she would not only be a great neighbor, but someone you could look to for leadership if she was in charge; poised, capable, willing to take on the tough fight with entrenched interest, as well as caring and compassionate.
The latest new about her teenage daughter’s pregnancy and the ensuing storm is extremely disappointing. It’s not seemly from any angle on the national stage. The attackers with their ridiculous twists on the origin of her Down syndrome child prompting the early disclosure and her well meaning supporters praising their families values for her daughters decision to keep the baby and get married.
Both sides are engaging in disconnected conversation and "we the people" should express our distaste for it.
This is soap opera, Jerry Springer material, and does not belong in the realm of legitimate political discourse. Even supporting pundits say “well what can you expect? It’s a political campaign and she’s now on the national stage.”
What I expect is that our pundits can raise their expectations and ours to some higher level of decency. It doesn’t seem too much to ask to express disgust and refuse to engage in it… Pinhead or Patriot.
There is certainly a clear distinction between a candidates long term association with a hate mongerer like Reverend Wright and a teenage daughters pregnancy. One tells you about the candidate, the other speaks about a teenage daughter. The candidate will be making choices for our country; the teenage daughter will be making the difficult choices and decisions teenagers have to make for themselves.
While John Edwards made a tragic moral slip, even a forgivable moral slip (depending on your mores), the fact that he could blatantly lie about it is the break point in the assessment.
Telling the truth allows the peoples judgment of the candidate to come into play. The blatant lie leaves people with a single judgment alone and there is no wiggle room. If a candidate can lie so convincingly as he did, I am left at a loss to then know whether the truth is told in any other matter. I am now required to fact check every assertion and claim that you make… and you are not worth the effort.
This notion that we can even infer the strength of this candidates’ values through decisions her 17 year old daughter makes is ludicrous. If the young lady decided to have an abortion or not be married what does that really say about her mother? It says absolutely nothing about her mother’s decision making ability or judgment whatsoever.
Her mother, Sarah, is in direct control of her own actions only. As the parent of four previous teenagers I can assure you this obviously admirable mother and family have done a nice job of teaching and reinforcing their values with their children, but can’t decide for them every minute of the day. Parents only exercise influence over the decisions their elder teenage children make. That sounds pretty darn normal!
It is fascinating to watch this play out with the various, and now transparent, factions of women in this country. Every man that I know and have spoken with is as excited about this woman being raised to the second most powerful position in this country as I am. There are even a few not so veiled admissions that she would be a more exciting Presidential candidate than the boys who are running now.
Where oh where are the chauvinists that are trying to keep women in their “proper place”? Apparently they are in the female population as the example below shows…
“As a full-time working mother of four, a Republican and a feminist, I am incensed at the failure of female Republicans to admit that Palin is a poor choice at this juncture in her life," says Hillary Weiss, a Philadelphia accountant. "It might be politically incorrect on my part, but I question her ability to take on the VP role while managing a large family with young children. Or is it that she is willing to sacrifice her family's well-being for the good of the country and personal ambition?"
Just like the issue of race, we have a general population that is long past the divisions, biases and rancor, yet their own factions continue to promote the divisiveness themselves due to their misguided beliefs or even worse, for their own purposes.
So we take the news of this young lady and twist it into meaning about the politician herself. If many of my children’s individual actions throughout the years were used in the assessment of who I am or what I believe in, I frankly wouldn’t even recognize myself. Fortunately their actions over time display many of the core beliefs that I hold dear; however, they are their own people. In fact, I raised them to be their own people. Their lives are not there to be lived for me.
It is difficult enough in all of the adroitly crafted, lavishly expensive spin to make determinations about the 7 key considerations of the candidates themselves. To extend this investigation and determination into their families is a red herring and self generated smoke by the spinners who create their own vapid fires.
We have reached a problematic point in our country, where our elected officials in Washington are a distant cousin to the people they are supposed to represent. We should squash this conversation and get to the issues. We should make it clear that even the purportedly “flawed” among us, people without the “right” education and pedigree, people with flaws and problems can make it through this scrutiny to represent us.
After all, this fine American woman Sarah Palin is a very excellent example of “us”.
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