Did Sarah Palin Fool You?

KWENU! Our culture, our future

Did Sarah Palin Fool You?

Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

rudolfokonkwo@aol.com

Friday, October 3, 2008

Sarah Palin was not born yesterday.

If the wink did not get you, probably the colloquial language did.

Something had to get you.

That was the Sarah Palin’s plan for the vice presidential debate. And it did work. A lot of people were fooled.

Those are people who have never watched Born Yesterday. It is not too late to watch the movie. It is not too late for those who wish to understand what happened in that one and half hour debate.

“We tricked them.” That was what Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday said when her coach, Paul Verrall, congratulated her for her performance at a dinner party. Sarah Palin could say the same thing to her handlers after last night’s debate. That is if she is as honest as Billie.

While Democrats were happy with the performance of Joe Biden, they must be disappointed that Sarah Palin did not collapse.

There were two instances where she was almost stumped. But she recovered quickly and went into talking points that were tangent to the questions asked. You will be astonished if you listen to her answer while the question is written on your TV screen. You will be like, “what the hell was she talking about?”

For the Republicans, it must be a relief. They did not have to worry about finding a new vice presidential candidate.

It also means that they are stuck with Sarah Palin.

Did she pass the threshold of being a heartbeat away from the presidency? It depends on who you asked. Those who could easily be fooled would say yes. Those who could not be fooled easily would say no.

She obviously redefined the concept of a debate. For Sarah Palin, the moderator has the right to ask the question he or she wants while Sarah Palin has the right to answer whatever question she has ready-made answers in her head.

After all the analysis is done, the fundamentals of this election remains that John McCain must change the dynamics of the campaign. He did that by picking Sarah Palin. It would have been a good thing if Sarah Palin gave him reasons last night to change the dynamics again by dumping her from the ticket.

The cost would have been a short term beating in the polls for an acknowledged bad decision in picking Palin. But replacing her with someone like Mitt Romney would have given McCain a boost in these trying times.

John McCain is now stuck with Sarah Palin. He would spend the next thir ty-something days running the campaign with one hand and managing Palin with the other- especially making sure she does not take a follow-up question from reporters.

Sarah Palin fooled some people last night. She will fool some people for the rest of the thirty something nights before the election. But she definitely will not be able to fool herself when she stands in front of the mirror every morning.

As some people will like to say, Sarah Palin held her own. That is not a game changer. And a game changer is what John McCain needs now.

Wink. Wink. Wink.