It's Tuesday here, but Labor Day is just ending in the eastern states. Of all the public holidays, that one was always the least joyous. When we were growing up, it meant summer vacation was over and it was back to, well, labor. Even as adults, it signals the end of summer and seems to say more about the coming autumn and winter than the days just past.
In my earlier career, it also meant that elections were getting closer and closer and it was time to begin pulling out all the stops. (As a digression, I knew what that phrase means, but I wondered how it came to be. Turns out it refers to pulling out the "stops" on a pipe organ to let more air through and increase the volume. But you probably knew that already and feel much smarter than me!)
Of course, in the US there can't be any stops left to pull out. The volume of electioneering has been a roar all the way down here in Australia for more months than anyone should have to endure. I will say one thing, it makes us American exports the focus of lots of questions.
We were at our friends' house for dinner on Saturday, and the other six (including transplanted English and Norwegians), were fascinated with what was going on in the US election. As so often happens lately, many of them knew even more than I do but just assumed that I had some special insight because I had lived there 20 years ago.
One of the more interesting assertions at the table was that Obama can't win because Americans would never elect a black man president. I was all set to give it my best outraged response until I recalled that I had thought the same thing when he first started doing well in states like Iowa back in January. Over the months, I have changed my mind and now I think it's not impossible to imagine Obama getting more votes than McCain although from here the betting line looks awfully close. (I submit that final sentence as proof that I am qualified to waffle on and not say anything, just like the candidates.)
The one thing I do know from afar is that the media seems to have decided that we all need nonstop crap from the campaign mouthpieces. These spokespeople, from both sides of the campaign, fill the airwaves with the most self-serving bilge. If asked a tough question, they smile and answer five different ones. If pressed on a sore point, they immediately tell you a sore point for the competition.
All that changed briefly on Saturday when a Republican spokeswoman was on CNN defending the choice of Sarah Palin. When pressed on the governor's credentials, this impeccably groomed and well-spoken woman decided the best answer somehow involved not answering the quesiton about Palin but discussing Joe Biden.
Her words, more or less: "At least Governor Palin hasn't spent the past 28 years in Washington as Joe Biden has. Someone with that history is part of the problem and will not be an agent of change."
For just a second, this young Republican rabbit's eyes widened in the headlight of awareness that she had also just described her boss. But her earnest smile never broke, I should add.
Of course, all this was before everyone heard about the governor's high school daughter getting knocked up and the governor having been a member of a political party advocating secession for Alaska. But somehow I am pretty sure she could have smiled through all of it and stuck to her talking points.
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