Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington

Anything you can do, I can do better -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
In 1939 Frank Capra directed a movie classic called Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In that movie Jefferson Smith is a naive, small-town scout master who gets appointed to a position of influence in Washington, somewhat by fluke. He comes to blows with party bosses and is very nearly undone by his own charm and innocence. Jefferson is played to halting, stammering perfection by a young Jimmy Stewart.

When I watched Sarah Palin give her speech at the St. Paul 2008 GOP Convention last night, I thought of Jefferson Smith -- without the stammering. I also thought of Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley. The 44-year old Palin is a moose-eating, gun-toting, snuff-chawing, varmint wrasslin' gal; she also happens to be a former beauty queen and an attractive plain-spoken mother of five with an extremely wholesome appeal. Palin who is currently in her 3rd year as Alaska's governor even has a vague resemblance to actress Tina Fey.

In the week since McCain chose her, people have taken all manner of pot-shots. Apparently her unwed 17 year old daughter is pregnant. Her husband, a commercial fisherman, had a DWI some 22 years ago. (Excuse me, didn't W Bush have a DWI in 1976?). Apparently, Palin was trying to get her former brother-in-law, an Alaska state trooper, fired -- that's now being investigated as a possible abuse of power. Nothing brought forth by the media has required me to get out my smelling salts. The Palin family seems normal and if that's the worst ammo anyone has, she doesn't much need to duck. Her speech last night was well-delivered and landed several good punches. She zinged Obama for various things like the cling-to-religion remark and she also zapped the "liberal" media. She seems poised and ready for election year combat.

When I look at her though, what do I see? A hockey mom, mother of five, Tina Fey-look-a-like. I don't necessarily see a President, except maybe in a custodial, finish-up-the-term Gerald Ford context. Could she summon the depth, power and knowledge that Roosevelt did at Yalta? Could she navigate all the complexities of the mortgage crisis? I'm not dissing women -- I think that Kay Hutchinson has been very effective in steering the ship in North Texas. I think Hillary has insight, weight and intelligence albeit for the other party.

We already have a "newbie" President who struggles with weighty concepts -- do we need another? The obvious retort is that Obama is also a newbie and that is absolutely true. We have an experience-challenged ticket on both sides and that will certainly affect how people vote. I myself prefer a more wizened person who's been a few steps through the mill. I'm still deciding how I'll vote. I used to think that undecideds should have "stupid" stamped across their foreheads, but I never faced such a tepid, tweedledee-tweedledum choice before.

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