Won't get fooled again?

November 2nd 2008 – U.S. Vice-Presidential candidate (Republican), gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, has been fooled by French Canada. Famous for tricking heads of states and celebrities, the “masked avengers” are a Montreal-based comedy duo that called Mrs. Palin while imitating French president Nicolas Sarkozy. What Palin thought was a private conversation with the leader of France was aired on radio networks in French Canada and undoubtedly in the rest of the world soon enough. Palins’ glaring inexperience shone through once again as she acknowledged Steph Carse as the Prime minister of Canada (he is a country singer from the 90s, Stephen Harper is the current PM) and she subsequently remained befuddled and mute when the comedian evoked further talk of foreign policy. Finally, it could be debated that Mrs. Palin either has a good and trusting heart or else that she is not very smart for not picking up on subtle clues that this was not a head of state. These hints include the comedian saying "I just love killing those animals. Mmm, mmm, take away life, that is so fun," as well as "I'd really love to go [hunting], so long as we don't bring along Vice-President [Dick] Cheney." And finally "You know we have a lot in common also, because ... from my house I can see Belgium."

This week, a short comparison could easily be brought up with the republican presidential candidate in 2000, one George W. Bush. The problem is that for all his stuttering, difficulty pronouncing names and mediatised portrayal as a retarded squirrel, President Bush knew stuff. Sure he would take four or five shots at saying Serbia’s president was Vojislav Koštunica but he could definitely point to Serbia on a map and remembered meeting this individual before during his years of work in Washington. No, a more appropriate historical comparison would include the democratic vice-presidential nominee in the 1984 general elections.

Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s vice-President, won the democratic nomination that year (over Jesse Jackson and John Glenn I might add). He was up against Ronald Reagan and his VP, George H. W. Bush; everyone said the democrats would lose after a long stint at the White House but Mondale wanted to prove them wrong. To win, he thought he would need a stunt, a shocking story, an unavoidable elephant in the room. He chose Geraldine Ferraro as a running mate. Sure she had only been in politics for six years and was an established law enforcement officer (Special Victims Unit) before that, what was important was that she had no external genitalia. They would figuratively put her in a cage, sell tickets and shout “step right up!” At first it worked, human rights groups, women’s associations and everyone that didn’t want to be labelled sexist praised his choice and their polling numbers started rising. Then, people started realising that no matter if the person is a woman, man, latino, dwarf, paraplegic or albino transsexual, they needed to be able to do the job. Pardon my saying so but Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin are not in the running to be the winner of an edgy reality show, they actually have to govern a nation of 300 million as well as the largest economy and armed forces on the planet if they survive tribal council. If this actually was a walk-in interview kind of position, I seriously doubt that the job application would list “must not have a penis” as an important hiring criterion. But I digress... As a result, the Reagan/Bush ticket won in a landslide and Ferraro, the first woman to be on a major party ticket, went down in history as the woman who didn’t know how to campaign, constantly had her foot in her mouth and was generally overwhelmed by the demands of her potential job.

Unfortunately for Mrs. Palin, she will be remembered as the second to fit that description.

Have a good election and remember that it’s not about the issues or the qualifications; it’s about voting for a black guy or a woman.

(Pictured: The Mondale/Ferrero ticket and yes, it was the eighties - Sarah Palin joined by fellow woman, Hillary Clinton)

End.