John McCain Ahead in Polls of Women Voters

I, too, would like to see a woman in the White House; I think the fact that we haven't yet is quite a national embarrassment.

However, wouldn't it be far more embarrassing to elect an under-qualified, conservative fundamentalist simply because of that desire to break that famous glass ceiling? What does that suggest of American Women?

Our current administration has done its very best to make our citizens appear as a flock of sheep in the eyes of the rest of the world. The McCain/Palin campaign is willing to add "easily distracted by shiny objects" to the American appearance.

John McCain made a name for himself by ignoring party pressure and voting for his own beliefs, speaking out against his wholly partisan colleagues. We all remember when John McCain, in the 2000 primaries, dismissively read a short apology for expressing his belief that the retention of the confederate flag was promoting racism. Despite the "apologetic" expression McCain reads it without animation, as he quickly walks by the camera crew, and then crumples the document and throws it to the ground. (I assume he is hurrying off to vomit over his foray into letting votes come before values.) He later admitted in an interview that political ambition had led to his apparent flip-flop.

Despite some political and personal scandal, John McCain, prior to his 2008 campaign, was known for his "straight-talk" and bipartisanship, if not for his shaky Washington ethics, and sometimes blinding political ambition.

If we study John McCain's pre-2000 record now, and compare it to his last eight years, we realize that he has "sold his soul" for the presidency. Every conservative issue he once opposed in outrage, he now clings to for dear life. Every GOP rival he once denounced as self-serving, he now leans on for support.

What has happened to John McCain? He is confused, listless, and hollow. He repeats the same talking points again and again, and now has stepped back almost completely to let his VP nominee do exactly the same thing. Is it so important to John McCain to make it to the White House that he has become a party-pleasing, smearing, self-deluding, campaigning automaton?

John McCain is (politically) both pale and frail. It is no wonder that he was advised to find a running mate who might "catch the eye" of less informed voters. What he needed was a dynamic, larger-than-life nominee; male or female, someone who would shine in the sun.

American Women, our female candidate, Sarah Palin, is nothing more than a "shiny object." And more a piece of polished glass than a rough diamond.

She has commanded the forefront of the McCain campaign on the promise of reform, yet the only reform in her career she can take credit for is firing a very competent Alaskan trooper.

She lies to her fans that Obama shows one face in Smalltown USA, and another in San Francisco (why is it always San Francisco... oh yes, because of the large gay community) and then repeats over and over the same lies she tried to pass off at the Republican National Convention; Lies that have been discredited daily as just that; not exaggerations, not stretches of the truth, but flat out lies.

Perhaps most importantly, she hides her fundamentalist policies under the guise of "small-town values."

Sarah Palin is shiny to the point of distraction. Which is really campaign gold to John McCain, who seems to do much better in the polls when Americans are busy sorting through stories of "sexually-active-toddlers," "painted-pigs," and "moose-killing, hocky-mom pitbulls," than he does when faced with this election's pertinent issues, like the economy, our occupation of Iraq, failing healthcare and school systems, and defunct foreign relations.

I was told by a classmate in college (jokingly, I hope) that women were "easily distracted by shiny objects." My response was: "That is the most chauvinistic, ridiculous thing I have ever... oh look! A shiny penny!" (I know, my wit is extremely enviable!)

What a step backward it would be for our generation of women, a generation so close to achieving long deserved equality, to let themselves be so manipulated by the McCain/Palin campaign, that they fail to see the rough and jagged rocks that are America's future, lying just beyond that bright, phony "gem."