Mark this day down on your calendars. Today was the day that the Republican Party tacitly admitted that for all its bluster and chest-thumping, it has nothing left in the magic hats but gimmicks and desperation.
In order for Republicans to try to win anything come November, they had to survey the political landscape and see who was left in America to buy their specific brand of whitewash.
With the choice of Sarah Palin, the answer is obvious. Like the heavy, shiny red delicious apples that hang from the trees wihtin reach of a hungry ambler through an orchard, so sits what are charitably called "low information voters". Those of us in the reality-based community would call them by their proper names; the idiots.
They come in all shapes and sizes. They can be warmongers, gun nuts and christianists, just to name a few. Yet the most important thing they all share is the same thing that keeps the Republicans blowing the dog whistles to round up this "special breed" of American: the ability to consistently vote against their own best interests.
Forget that divorce rates are bigger in your backyard in the Deep South. GAY PEOPLE WANT TO MARRY! DON'T YOU SEE THE THREAT?
Forget that you can't afford health insurance for you or your family. THEY'RE TEACHING EVOLUTION IN YOUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
And on and on and on.....
Typical Republican voters are living in their own little version of "Waiting For Godot". They wait, they hear promises, they shiver in the cold, nothing happens and they continue to wait. I guess quoting a dramatic play makes me elitist, since literacy is not what Republicans look for in a voter.
Conservatives will no doubt play up the God card with Palin in the same way they did with another neophyte governor from a big geographical state 8 years ago. Funny thing this time around. When you put a woman on the ticket as a holy roller, based on biblical teachings and McCain's obvious physical and mental impairment, will they choose Bob Barr or the possibility of a woman running the free world?
This is going to be fun.