One hand on this wily comet, take a drink just to give me some weight. Some uber-man I’d make; I’m barely a vapor. They shone a chlorine light on a host of individual sins. Let’s carve my aging face off; fetch us a knife. Start with my eyes, down so the lines form a grimacing smile.
Close your eyes to corral a virtue. Is this fooling anyone else? Never worked so long and hard to cement a failure. We can blow on our thumbs and posture but the lonely are such delicate things. The wind from a wasp could blow them into the sea with stones on their feet; lost to the light and the loving we need.
Still to come: the worst part and you know it. There is a numbness in your heart and it’s growing.
With burnt sage and a forest of bygones I click my heels, get the devils in line. A list of things I could lay the blame on might give me a way out. But with each turn it’s this front and center, like a dart stuck square in your eye. Every post you can hitch your faith on is a pie in the sky, chock full of lies, a tool we devise to make sinking stones fly.
And still to come: the worst part and you know it. There is a numbness in your heart and it’s growing.
I WATCHED TUESDAY NIGHT’S Presidential debate—as I did the first, and as I did the Vice Presidential debate between Biden and Palin—to learn more about the candidates, and to help me make a decision I consider one of the most important I will ever make. Yes, despite my endorsement of Barack Obama in the party primaries, I have continued to listen and read, and to consider what I have learned in the new light of each increasingly tumultuous day.
These are dangerous and difficult times; I want to be sure that all four of these candidates have been thoroughly examined and well-tested for the daunting task that lies ahead.
Turns out, I needn’t have bothered.
Sarah Palin’s recent performance on the campaign trail—and John McCain’s apparent tacit approval of that performance—have made the decision for me.
I was shocked by McCain’s sudden surprise VP pick and by Palin’s unimpeded glide to the Republican nomination. Knowing little about Alaska’s Governor, I was impressed by her speech at the GOP convention—impressed enough with her deft delivery and her faux populist appeal that I wanted to learn more.
As much as I dislike the near interminable length of the Presidential campaign season, I also appreciate the exposure it offers, the pressure-testing of each candidate that we are able to observe. That McCain short-circuited all of that by choosing a relative unknown—while certainly his perogative—renewed my reluctant appreciation for the lengthy vetting process.
As I have learned more, and as Palin has revealed more in her less scripted words and actions, my concern and anger and disgust with the Republican ticket’s toxic tactics have grown.
I share Sarah Palin’s experience as a frontier woman, of sorts, having lived for a decade in the frigid clime of northernmost Maine on the edge of the Allagash Wilderness. My experience might actually have been rawer than hers. I lived without electricity or running water, cooked and heated with wood from the trees I helped fell and with logs I split and stacked by the cord.
I worked and read by kerosene light, and was grateful for the battery-operated radio that brought the world closer to me. My family and I lived, in part, on the vegetable garden we were able to grow in the short season between first and last frost. We hauled water for drinking, for cooking, for bathing. We relied on our own considerable resources of health and knowledge and hard work to subsist, and even to thrive.
It was a lifestyle we chose many years ago, because we had the choice. Should I return to it, though, it will be out of necessity, not choice. By equal parts challenging and exhilarating, my time in Maine taught me what is absolutely necessary for life—and what is not. It has proven invaluable knowledge. It may well come in handy again if this country’s dire economic circumstances are not somehow reversed and our plunge into recession and eventual depression not stopped.
What Palin and I do not share, however, is a dangerous disregard for the words we wield, for the ideas we advance, for the powerful consequence—be it intended or otherwise—of political rhetoric unleashed on a country that is suddenly poised for disaster, whose citizens are fearful and increasingly angry, whose leaders appear ever more uncertain, divided, ineffective and powerless, and whose national crisis has quickly reverberated around the globe.
Sent forth to serve as McCain’s attack dog, Palin is virtually foaming at the mouth, setting a new standard for vitriol and demagoguery that has found fertile ground among audiences whose prejudice and paranoia have needed only a good strong stir to reach boiling point.
I’ve learned enough about Palin. My curiosity is sated. And unfortunately, what I thought I knew of McCain has been proven wrong. Whether or not I might ever have supported John McCain’s political views or preferred his style of leadership, or honored his undeniable sacrifice and service to this country, the point has been rendered moot. I despise these tactics and fear their result.
In this, he has put himself and his own goals above his country. Our divisions should not be plundered for political gain, nor should our fears and prejudices be exploited for electoral advantage. We face serious threats as a nation—threats of growing debt and financial insolvency, of waning international influence and questionable moral authority. We are engaged in war in two foreign countries, and the costs in both human and financial capital cannot be sustained.
Our quest for energy independence and for alternate energy sources is urgent; we will be judged by our children and our children’s children according to the success or failure of our efforts. Despite our relative wealth as a nation, we have failed to ensure the right of affordable health care to every citizen, and the excellence of our educational institutions is no longer unparalleled.
We must learn to find common agreement on the solutions to these problems. We must make the sacrifices necessary to regain our footing.
The leaders we choose today must be capable of forging that agreement, of working with us to find new solutions to daunting problems, of inspiring sacrifice and generosity and of bridging the gaps that separate us. They must dedicate their service to curing this epidemic of distrust and restoring our confidence in them, ourselves and each other once again.
By their acts shall we know them. The desperate and despicable actions of John McCain and Sarah Palin in the final days of this campaign provide stark contrast to Barrack Obama’s grace in withstanding the barrage and his continued focus on and grasp of the issues we face.
I know now what I need know to cast my vote with confidence this November.
One hand on this wily comet, take a drink just to give me some weight. Some uber-man I’d make; I’m barely a vapor. They shone a chlorine light on a host of individual sins. Let’s carve my aging face off; fetch us a knife. Start with my eyes, down so the lines form a grimacing smile. 
