Write-in for Vice President

I am trying to figure out why I don't like Sarah Palin. It's not that I don't like her. I don't like what's happening with the 2008 election process with so much focus on this one person because "she" is a "woman" and, yada yada yada.

Am I jealous of her? I don't think so. Maybe it's because on the list of qualities for her, I can say the same things about myself. I don't see myself as Vice President material. So is it a low self esteem issue? What?

I don't wear lipstick. Not for any fashion statement – I just find it kind of yucky and will chew it off by the time I hit my desk. So I simply do not wear it. Since I am 59 years old and could have been wearing lipstick since I was 16 (in case my parents would let me), I could have saved enough money in not buying lipstick over the last 43 years, that I could have developed a huge 401(k) plan (moot point – with the stock market dropping 500 points and all the other recession nastiness we are experiencing right now). But hey! I could have saved a lot of money.

So it's not the lipstick. That's on her list. It's not on mine.

Here's my list.

• I'm a mother of two boys;
• I change my own flat tires (maybe that's not on her list)
• I change my own light bulbs, fix my house when needed (repair windows, paint, replace worn siding, clean out the pipes under the sink, catch and dump dead mice, catch and release all other living creatures).
• Not on my list: I don't shoot living breathing Bambi's or Bullwinkle's.
• Not on my list: I don't fish – worms hate me
• I was a single mother for most of my sons' upbringing (not on her list)
• I have made financial decisions by myself without a husband; I bought my own house under my own name; I paid cash for my car; I have friends to repair my car.
• I work at a day job; I work as a parent; I work as a homemaker; I am my own wife.
• I am experienced in time management, project management, child management, career advancement for my children, nurse and fireman for my children, chauffeur, cook, bottle washer, and home schooling in the evening after the public school gives them enough homework to keep them in a coma for a week.
• I am not a hockey mom – it's not in my budget; I am a cub scout mom which entailed more hand's on, dig in the cupboard and garage and find everything you need to help your son build a cherried out stock car out of a small piece of wood.

Ok, back to this question. Why does it bother me so much? I said the same things about Hillary that I am now thinking about Sarah.

I think it is all the hoopla over her lipstick statement vs. Obama's lipstick statement and then McCain saying Obama wasn't being specifically offensive to Palin in his lipstick statement (totally avoiding saying that he, McCain, was the first one to say the lipstick statement months before Palin even arrived). So all the news blips are all about who said what about whom and nothing about what.

I blame the media on this big time. They snatch a phrase or even a burp and blow it way out of proportion and sidestep substantive issues – like taxes, stem cell research, health care, social security, world peace.

Ok – I think my list is longer than her list. Should I run on the independent ticket? Can I run as Vice President or do I have to have a President run with me?

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Lipstick on a Pig

There it is, that ominous phrase. Kind of like "When Pigs Fly."

I do not for one nanosecond believe that Obama made that statement as a slam against Palin. It has been said before by several politicians. By McCain himself. How can that possibly relate to Palin? I am thinking the Democrats protest too much over nothing.

The glorification of Palin is a rather bleak outlook on our society in general. If you have good looks, are female, represent Mother Earth, pro-life at all costs, hunt and kill dinner for your family, and are nicknamed Barracuda, you have just qualified to run for Vice President of the United States with the 150% chance of being President within 100 days of inauguration. O boy!

How can this happen???? Does being a mayor of a small community and then governor of a sparsely populated state really give you the credentials to be, by all accounts, the President of the United States?

When we vote this fall, in just eight weeks, we really need to look at the ballot. If you are voting for McCain – think again. You are actually voting for the Vice President because his life expectancy has been greatly reduced and is much shorter than you realize.

So this morning, the news is all about the innocuous phrase, "lipstick on a pig," where Obama is referring to change in America. Not once inferring that it was directed towards Palin. But the Dems are spending all their time and energy trying to make it so. This is the stage of politics that I really truly hate. It is enough for me to not want to bother with the elections. We are in for a huge, huge change in America no matter which way we go. But I fear for our country and our soldiers in Iraq if we go McCain/Palin. I fear for our President's own life if we go Obama/Biden.

I fear for our women, too. We have just back-pedaled 30 years where exploiting women was the rule of the day. Once again we will have posters in garages, not of models in swimsuits, but politicians in high heels and - - - - - lipstick. All the news and all the blogs are covering Palin and underscoring good looks, beauty, etc. as the proof positive that men still see us as sex objects, better if we are barefoot and pregnant. We have grossly erased the impact of Roe v. Wade and will eventually lose the right to our own bodies. Again.

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