We returned home Tuesday after what was essentially a media fast. We got the newspaper only twice during our trip to Europe, didn't bring the laptop with us, and didn't activate our cell phones for data. So it was much to my surprise when I walked into the Chicago airport and saw CNN news anchors blathering about Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol being pregnant. Uh, who cares about Alaska all the sudden? I soon found out and have been caught up in the perfect storm of media coverage ever since. It's like if a tiny country in Africa was suddenly in the running for the World Cup being in Alaska right now.
I wasn't really surprised she was chosen as VP, the Russian bloggers have predicted it for at least 6 months. She ticks off a lot of boxes for McCain: conservative, pro-life, pro-NRA, female, known for being anti-corruption, known for being pro-business, and totally non-oldschool Washington. If you were evaluating the ticket as a total package, rather than a "What happens when he keels over?" approach, you would definitely have filled in the gaps with Palin.
I'm still digesting all of the attacks, the weird media coverage (can't they intelligently ask someone who knows how to pronounce simple things like her name or hometown before making yourself look like an ass?), and the fact that my candidate who everybody wrote off last year is at the top of the ticket and my governor is in the #2 spot. It's very surreal, like watching somebody you went to High School with on the news. (Trust me, she's way older, but the analogy holds.)
Weirder still is that watching the convention turned what was a blah election for me, with the presumed election of Barack Obama to look forward to at the end into something exciting to watch. I have a team to cheer for again. I may not agree with my team on several key issues, but its like a family, we talk bad about each other within the family, but we'd never say a bad word and become very defensive when it comes to outsiders attacking. I still think I'll give my honest opinions and disect the ticket later.
And um yeah, vacation blogging didn't happen. We couldn't find free wi-fi except once so I journaled the vacay and will do some posting later. We were moving around so much that it didn't make sense to pay 10 euros every day for wi-fi for our entire stay at a hotel which we were only staying at one day. I have to drive 10 hours to a family wedding this weekend so I'll use that as a chance to catch up with my blogging and picture processing.
