Palin's gosh dern golly-gee debate

Now by-golly, there are a lot of things that took place last week. Besides the financial crisis and the Cubs losing, there was the vice presidental debate, don'tcha-know. Sarah Palin, the first female vice presidential candidate, took on Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Though Sarah Palin gave it her darndest, by-george, she just couldn't cut it and was mutilated. Oh no Joe, say it ain't so, but it looks like the Maverick and his Maverick-ess might have the darndest time trying to win this election.

Now that first paragraph might be hard to read, but for those of you that watched the debate, understand that it would have been exactly how Sarah Palin would have said it. She took the "down-to-earth" approach to a whole new level.

Actually, Ms. Palin's folksy approach was one of the low points of her performance. Now we all know that "straight talk is the only language that those "main-streeters" understand, but those same people aren't stupid. Every time the maverick Palin opened her mouth, I felt as though a fourth grader was stabbing my ear drum with a pencil. Her vocabulary was so amateur, I thought the writers from Sesame Street helped her prepare.

There were words she used constantly. For example, she kept referring to herself (and John McCain) as the "Maverick." She might have said "Maverick" at least 2,000 times. Not only did she use words over and over, but she used a plethora of filler words that were taken right out of Beverly Hillbillies. Words like, "darndest," "by-golly," and "by-george" may be OK to say in casual talk among friends, but not when you're talking to the nation. Not only does it make her look incredibly stupid it also patronizes the audience. Just because people aren't from Wall Street doesn't mean they stopped at sixth grade. "Straight talk" isn't synonymous with "stupid talk."

When national U.S. candidates speak the whole world listens. Palin needs to not make the entire country look like a bunch of simpletons who have the IQ of a glowstick or worse, vote for someone who does.

The funniest part was the post-debate debate among the punditry. Each CNN pundit (both Republican and Democrat) agreed that Biden destroyed Palin. But they each said that the best part of her performance was that she didn't completely bomb. Republican pundits said that they were scared that she was going to ruin McCain's chance at victory by saying something really stupid, but surprisingly she wasn't as bad as they thought she was going to be.

Republicans weren't the only people who had that expectation; the entire country was eagerly looking forward to seeing her in the spotlight. The debate was predicted to be one of the most watched in TV history, mainly because everyone wanted to see how badly Palin would perform. The Alaskan governor first showed her true colors by admitting during a TV interview that she didn't even know what the vice president did. Though she claims now that it was only a joke, those who have seen the clip probably wouldn't believe her.

Sarah Palin has to be the worst choice for vice president that John McCain could have picked. The fact that people judge her on how bad she didn't do, is a testament to why. Her being picked as VP is a clear low-brow attempt by the McCain campaign to pull female voters. But the act itself is insulting. Women aren't that shallow. They aren't going to vote for someone solely because they are female. Before you vote Republican remember that Sarah Palin is a heartbeat away from being president and at John McCain's age that is a lot closer than you may think.

Paul is a senior in computer and political science and is looking forwarded to SNL's Thursday Night Live special.