Palin’s wardrobe saga…Can We Vote Now? by Chef Sheila

At this point, criticizing Sarah Palin is like beating a dead moose. But who can resist this week’s stories of her “wardrobe of the stars” spending spree…

The latest in a stream of revelations that have firmly established Palin as the worst vice presidential choice, if not in history, at least in living memory. In picking her, John McCain lost two vital arguments: experience, because she doesn’t have any, and judgment, because he didn’t show any.

In recently filed expenditure reports, we learned that the Republican National Committee revealed spending more than $150,000 at Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, and Saks on a campaign makeover for the supposed Walmart Mom.

Who knew it cost this much to dress like a populist? At the very moment Palin was celebrating herself as “your average hockey mom” in her convention speech, she was wearing a $2,500 silk jacket by Valentino…..A long way from Off-The-Rack like the rest of us “Elitists”.

Imagine if she were running with the elites instead of against them? For those opening their quarterly pension-fund statements, it’s a painful reminder that Republican headquarters will always be Wall Street not Main Street.

Still, shouldn’t a woman catch a break here, having a bigger burden to look good 24/7? Too much attention to vanity is an equal-opportunity destroyer no matter who pays. But for his affair with a staffer, John Edwards would largely be remembered for his $400 haircut. Poor Al Gore never took the bad advice he got to wear earth tones, but he never heard the end of it.

Palin parading around like a Project Runway extra will take far less heat even though the bill she sent the committee makes Paris Hilton look like a Target shopper. With her $1.2 million in assets and six-figure salary, Palin could have footed the bill for whatever extreme makeover she felt was in order.

It’s not a victimless crime. That $150,000 comes from funds that a respected incumbent like New Hampshire Republican Sen. John Sununu — struggling not to be dragged down by the McCain- Palin ticket — desperately needs.

In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week, voters cited the choice of Palin as their top concern ahead of McCain’s continuing President George W. Bush’s policies.

As if a stunning 55 percent now thinking her unqualified to be president wasn’t enough and in the spirit of Dan Quayle, Palin told a 3^rd grader that as Vice President her duties would include being “in charge of the U.S. Senate.” The RNC should have spent its money for a tutorial on the Constitution.

In choosing Palin, McCain ignored the old rule to pander to your base in the primary and break their hearts in the general election. Palin was a gift to the already committed. A hunter-gatherer from the last frontier with a large family and knockout good looks, she even turned an out-of-wedlock pregnancy that could have put off evangelicals as an example of lax childrearing or Hollywood ethics into a story of teenagers in love doing the right thing.

Even as her negatives rise, the “real American” parts of the country are still transfixed. She delivered a boffo red-meat speech with a smile at the convention, then winked and hammed her way through the vice presidential debate. What she does well is hardly enough to compensate for what she does poorly.

Finally, Palin has cost McCain his standing with many of the “Elite” Republicans and lost him the endorsement of his friend, Colin Powell, the man he called his “favorite living hero.” On “Meet the Press”  Powell said Palin raised doubts about McCain. “I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president.”

For all the experience 72 years has brought McCain, it hasn’t brought him good judgment. If we had doubts before meeting Sarah Palin. We know it now

Pity the Poor President, At This Time in Our History by Chef Sheila

If the 49th presidential debate didn’t clarify which candidate you support, you probably don’t really want to vote anyway. Despite the polls in Obama’s favor, we don’t know for certain whether he or John McCain will win Nov. 4. There are voters who don’t tell pollsters the truth (on race, for one thing).

Another October surprise could roil the waters again….even though I think it’s on McCain this year, as in Colin Powell’s mighty timely and thorough endorsement of Barack Obama.

We do know this is one election where the candidates are at polar opposites on nearly everything the in role of government in our lives, tax policy, foreign involvements, dealing with terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how to get the economy stable again, what to do about spiraling foreclosures, how to stimulate jobs and what constitutes fairness in a complex society where we all want to be moral but disagree vehemently on what that means.

The Last Debate (sounds like a made-for-TV movie) showed a cool, cerebral, but dispassionate Obama against a fiery, aggressive, slightly desperate McCain.

This is not an election where the cuter one wins, where congeniality decides the day, where the guy you’d most like to have a drink with is necessarily the one you want talking to you on your TV for four years. Our skinny wallets, rising joblessness and our many young men and women in combat make that obvious. The tasks ahead are so different from those Bush faced eight years ago it is almost unbelievable or maybe surreal is more believable….

It’s hard to imagine how either Obama or McCain would feel on Jan. 20, walking into the Oval Office and seeing the buck lying on the desk. All those promises! So few resources! So many problems demanding immediate attention! It’s multi-tasking on a whole new level.

That is why we have to choose a president with a penchant for choosing good people to advise him. The next vice president, either Joe Biden or Sarah Palin, won’t be just attending funerals and checking the health of the president.

The next cabinet will have to be men and women of action, proven ability, intelligence, astonishing work habits and a well-honed ability to work with others. The next president will have more than 3,000 executive positions to fill; he must act quickly or government will stagnate.

No. 44 will have to work with a newly constituted but still Democratic Congress, not an easy task for anyone. Despite all the campaign promises, it’s Congress that actually allocates the money.

We need a president who is innovative, has amazing energy and stamina and is able to speak to us in a way that is reassuring but candid. Bush never prepared us for sacrifice; the next president will have no choice but to force us to make one tough decision after another.

There is one decision that is indefensible — the decision NOT to vote. If we don’t, we have no right to complain.