Hockey Mom Representation

I didn’t watch the first half of the vice-presidential debate last night. I couldn’t bring myself to watch Sarah Palin torture and contort perfectly good sentences and thoughts. I instead resolved to watch immediately after the debate a summarization of the train wreck.

My resolve broke and I tuned in with a half hour left. Of that half hour, I witnessed no gaffes from either candidate. In fact, Palin seemed to be assembling cogent sentences into recognizable responses to specific questions. Republicans must have swooned over and over again as Palin repeatedly mentioned “tax cuts” and “Ronald Reagan;” at least she wasn’t babbling like she was in those Curic interviews.

Which leads me to believe that McCain has badly handled Palin. After she gave that first speech announcing her candidacy, they not only squirreled her away out of sight, I believe they also attempted to “train” her in how to respond to vice-presidential questions. The result: a candidate no longer confident in herself enough to intelligently answer questions related to the job she’s running for.

Biden is the polar opposite. He’s been shooting his mouth off his entire career. The guy oozes confidence, which most people will say leads him into an entirely different realm of trouble, loquaciousness and foot-in-mouth disease. I suppose Obama could try and handle his running mate, but I doubt he’d get far. Biden has almost as much political experience as Obama has years of life. Obama knows that, which is probably one of many reasons he picked Biden in the first place.

I know why McCain picked Palin: she’s a woman and she’s ultra-conservative. A good chunk of the Republican Party doesn’t particularly care for McCain. Palin was calculated to appeal to them. And appeal to Hilary Clinton voters still angered that Obama won the Democratic primary.

So McCain picked a good candidate to help him get elected, but he didn’t necessarily pick a good candidate to help lead the country through the mind-bottling problems that face us. We don’t need another Joe Six Pack. We don’t need folksy, down-home, country bumpkin goodness. We don’t need Hockey Moms adequately represented in the White House. What we do need are smart, smart people. I’m not saying Palin isn’t smart because I think she is. She rose to governor of a U.S. state and that’s nothing to sneeze at. I just don’t think her particular skills and presentation fit with what our country needs right now.

In the end though, all the Veep attention is much ado about nothing. Hardly anyone votes by VP (except me on the religion thing). Palin has garnered inordinate attention for all the obvious reasons. But this ultimately will come down to McCain and Obama.