Thursday, September 25, 2008

Introducing: The Suburban Mom's Political Fix


Only fortysomething days remain until Americans head to the polls to elect a new president. And this year, moms who vote are getting a lot of attention from pollsters and the media, even though moms (like dads) don't vote in lockstep and in fact have views the encompass all ends of the political spectrum, as I wrote in yesterday's blog entry.

Given the unprecedented level of attention this election has been receiving, I've decided that a weekly, bipartisan round-up of election news, called the Suburban Mom's Political Fix is in order. I'm planning to write quirky posts at least once a week, more frequently as news events dictate.

To Debate or Not Debate. That is, apparently, the big question hovering over the presidential campaign right now. Sen. John McCain stunned everyone yesterday with his announcement that because the federal Wall Street bailout proposal was on the verge of falling apart, he was going to suspend his presidential campaign, blow off David Letterman (and piss off the late night talk show host because McCain didn't cancel his Katie Couric interview), and possibly skip Friday night's presidential debate in Mississippi until some sort of deal to prop up the U.S. economy is struck in Washington.

Yet today, word is that there's a tentative, bipartisan agreement on the table, despite what the folks back home may think about a bailout. So does this mean that Mac will show up on Friday night as planned and as Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama has already said he would? Your guess is as good as mine.

CNN Anchor Calls Campaign Treatment of Palin 'Sexist.' CNN's Campbell Brown is ticked off at the McCain campaign for keeping what she sees as too tight a grip on how and when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fields questions from the media. Brown said it's "sexist" to not allow Palin to face the media like all the other major candidates are doing, including Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden.
I personally think this is just a strategy devised to avoid gaffes, like the whoppers Biden's been making lately (there've been some ugly ones too). But as the only female candidate for national office left in the running, Palin's limited media availability does leave the campaign wide open to the charge that they're treating her with kid gloves. This is the big show, the big leagues. If she can't answer (or pretend not to hear) shouted questions from reporters who are hanging around the campaign trail, she's got no business being there.





Today, by the way, marked the first time that Palin actually answered a couple of inquiries from reporters. Maybe the McCain campaign took cues from Brown's "Free Sarah Palin" rant.

Why I love Entertainment Weekly. The magazine's writers and editors are smart and, for a publication focused on the entertainment industry, have a savvy way of delivering information and commentary on pop culture that doesn't patronize its readers. The cover of the new issue (see above), parodying the controversial New Yorker magazine cover with a photo of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, is spot-on. THAT cover is funny, the New Yorker cover, not so much, in fact, not at all.
Be sure to read the interview with Colbert and Stewart.

Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

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