Normally, I don’t like serious talk. Not because I am ignorant about politics or economic and foreign policies, but, in fact, I know too much. And if someone starts chatting me up at a dark Silver Lake bar or a vegan backyard barbecue, I refuse to ruin a good buzz with discussions of how I voted for Mike Gravel in the presidential primaries or how 9/11 was an inside job.

But this month, my aversion to important-yet-depressing conversations is waiting for me in December because – with our economy swirling down the ivory throne of karma and a presidential race for the history books – my next two months are filled with them.

Despite my many complaints about the wrinkles in McCain’s skin or his mention of needing hair plugs at last week’s debate, my real issue with the Republicans’ campaign – besides the fact that it’s Republican – is Sarah Palin. I really can’t stand her.

And it’s not just because I’m embarrassed that we spell our names the same way (although that’s part of it), and it’s not even that she sounds like Roseanne Barr after gastric bypass surgery (although that’s also part of it), but it’s more that she is the opposite of the American dream. Sarah Palin does not deserve to be Vice President, and she knows it.

She is the Britney Spears of politics, thrown into the vortex of public scrutiny with only a few years of political “Mickey Mouse Club” on her resume, and her subsequent rise to popularity is half because she is the most attractive woman in Alaska and half because that woman is the governor.

Palin has spent her month on the McCain trail giving Katie Couric geography lessons, stressing the need to help other parents of special needs children and setting a world record for “gosh darns” during a televised debate. And last weekend, while I was having a birthday on the beach with expensive lobster dinners and a cake with my name on it, the rest of the country watched Sarah Palin shoot herself in the foot with her bigot rifle, then put that foot in her mouth.

I could go on and on about how the “guilt by association” tactic is a slippery slope of Pandora’s boxes, but before one starts accusing baby Obama of canoodling with “domestic terrorists” that couldn’t even put a bomb together, one would be wise to make sure that she and her husband weren’t longtime members of what MSNBC calls a “fringed, secessionist movement” that rallied for Alaskan independence.

So, keep it up, Sarah. Your abstinence-only education left you with a pregnant, unwed, teenage daughter, and even hockey moms know you aren’t qualified for the position. By trash talking an opponent off of flash card factoids, you’re starting a schoolyard fight that no one will show up to and making small town America think twice about electing the same old, same old. Some more of these unjustified rants about how Obama is un-American and change might just elect itself.

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