During my youth my dad would say, "The Republicans are for the rich. They think they should have everything and everybody else ain't supposed to have nothin'." Used to I thought those were the grousings of an assembly line worker, but more recently I've come to share his view.

This year my mom was for Hillary Clinton, like me, but my dad didn't want to see Hillary in office at all. Why? She's a woman. No way a woman was going to win. Though my dad generally dislikes the Republican philosophy he was supporting McCain (not that he or my mom have voted since 1992). McCain is a man, you see, and that's who should run things.

Then Barack Obama usurped the nomination from Hillary. My mom was extremely disappointed but has reluctantly backed Obama. Was my dad going to get behind the Democrats now that there was a man at the top of the ticket?

Absolutely not! He's a black man. "John McCain is gonna win by the biggest landslide they ever was! When they get in that booth white folks are gonna vote for white!" Dad went so far as to say the people George Carlin described as "The Owners of This Country" probably put this charade together on purpose, knowing the white candidate would win so they could keep their plunder in Iraq going.

If my dad's 72-year-old-from-Tennessee rhetoric sounds extreme, backwards or unenlightened, he positively sounds like a Berkeley hippie next to his pals, who keep the "Obama is a radical Muslim nigger" e-mails flowing like a river. At least my dad writes them back that that's a ridiculous assertion, and they write back, "Then go ahead and vote for the black Muslim."

So dad was supporting McCain but then, something happened...

Enter the Mayor of Wasilla

I confess, the new Republican Vice Presidential nominee makes me want to whack. What's everyone else saying?

"A gun-shootin', snow ski-drivin', corruption-bustin', frontier She Wolf!"

"She ought to be President! She's got nice legs!"

"We're the ones that have the babe on the ticket, Ed! This woman hunts moose!"

Confirming my worst fears, this is the kind of intellectual analysis Sarah Palin has gotten across the Internet (the last comment coming from Rush Limbaugh himself). My 60-something aunt wrote that it was so nice to see "an ordinary person on the ticket." Yeah, I can hardly wait for the supremely-ordinary mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, pop. 7,000, to talk to Ahmadinejad and Putin. She should certainly strike boners in their pants and fear in their hearts. Why do I suddenly feel so unsafe?

So what would my dad have to say about this pick? Surely McCain must have really pulled one out of the hat, huh? Selecting someone who looks like Robin Meade's older sister as VP?

"Boy, he's lost it now! No way in hell he's going to get elected!," dad surprised me. "It's like he didn't even want to win!"

Epilogue

Not to be outdone, Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr has now selected the assistant principal of Middletown Elementary as his running mate. She gives regularly to the church collection plate, supports the troops, and is said to fill out a pants suit in a most eye-catching way.