Canvassing on Halloween

We have been giving out candy all night. The first family that came to the door gave us a "Yes on 3B" flier and asked us to vote for the schools. Later in the evening, an entire contingent of children wearing Obama for America buttons on their Spider Man, ghost, and skeleton costumes, came to the door.

I've never seen Halloween campaigning before. It just speaks to how important this election is to people. Nobody wants to take off even a kids' holiday because we need so much.

Cindy McCain Inspired Me to Go Dark

I just couldn't stand watching Mrs. McCain's hair any longer.

Bad Dream

The alarm went off this morning but I kept sleeping, though the radio was still playing. I was in that sleep/wake state that you have early in the morning when you really are not prepared to face the day -- sort of wishful sleeping.

I was still in that state when NPR began its story on the hypothetical Supreme Court case, McCain v. Obama. It is a project going at some university to help clarify election law in case of a 2000-esque result in the upcoming election. (I think that was what it was, I was asleep).

But as I lay there asleep, absorbing the story on the radio, I was convinced, CONVINCED, that it was the day after election day and we were still waiting for results. I really believed that. The weird thing about it was how it made me feel -- so scared and sad. Somehow deep in my sleep, I recognized all of those awful memories and feelings from 2000. The aftermath of that election was just the worst, most divisive time for our country, and even in my sleep I knew I didn't want to go through it again.

Vogue Calls Election For Obama

The November issue of Vogue arrived in my mailbox yesterday. On the cover there is a headline that says, "4 Generations of Biden Beauties: All the Vice President's Women."

There it is.

Joe Biden's Sympathetic Nodding

I only got to see thirty minutes of the debate last night as I had school. But DU had the debates on in the Moot Court classroom, so I stopped in there between classes. Honestly, I was hoping for good entertainment. Poor Governor Palin, so hopelessly average, can't put two sentences together. And then there's Our Guy, Senator Biden and his plagiaristic past (embarrassing) and his plainly stupid present. He recently said that when the stock market crashed in 1929, President Roosevelt got on T.V. and calmed the nation. (More embarrassing).

What I saw were two very rehearsed, professional-looking people doing their best not to screw it all up. The Senator was keeping his foot out of his mouth and the Governor was doing her best to remember what she'd memorized earlier this week.

So I watched the interaction between them. I was particularly interested in seeing what Senator Biden was going to do in light of the fact that his opponent is a woman. Ordinarily, I don't see why it would matter that she is a woman. The Speaker of the House is a woman, for goodness sakes. But there has been this weird use of the word "sexist" lately. I am perplexed as to why it has been suggested that Senator Biden had to be careful not to look sexist when debating Governor Palin. It was suggested that he might be too aggressive. I don't get that. Isn't it sexist to suggest that Governor Palin is too delicate to be debating a man? Should she worry that he is going to be mean? Is he going to reach over and tug on her hair?

Now, don't get me wrong. I think there has been some misogyny in the campaign, but particularly in reference to Senator Clinton being like a school marm or a shrew. Governor Palin has been lucky that her serious lack of substance makes her a mockery, so no one has had to make ad hominim attacks on her womanhood.

Governor Palin is many things, but she certainly isn't delicate. And when she's scripted she's a pretty good public speaker. Add to that that as a high school debate coach, I see boys and girls in deathmatches against each other all the time. The girls expect no favors for being female, and the boys certainly don't hold back on their attacks. Debate is about winning.

So it interested me that Senator Biden, in his effort to show respect to Governor Palin, listened intently as she spoke and even added nods. You know those nods -- the ones that men are supposed to use when listening to women, to show that they have sympathy, that they "understand," and that they are "there for" them? Clearly, he had been coached. Some one on his campaign has read Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.

The nodding was artificial. Why do the American people expect sympathy and "understanding" in a presidential debate? Nodding in deference to your opponent's gender in a debate is demeaning to your opponent, not respectful. If one of my boy debaters did that in a round against a girl, I'd bench him.

Just About the Coolest Thing in the World

Adam Smith's Invisibility Cloak

The financial crisis is the invisible hand giving us a slap down.

Sarah Palin is Running for First Lady, Not VP

Yep. She is. More about that later.

Apparently Governor Palin Makes Bad Decisions

And I'm not even talking about the banana clip that she was wearing when she was announced as the VP candidate. Who would wear one of those for any reason, not to mention the most important day of her political life? Apparently it is a ploy to attract the soccer moms -- women who have not felt attractive since the 80s when banana clips were acceptable to wear to, ahem, the Sadie Hawkins Dance.

But I digress from the real reason I hesitate to applaud the Republican choice in this case. Reader, she flew while she was in labor. More specifically, she flew from Texas to Alaska, all the while leaking amniotic fluid. In fact, she did not inform the flight crew that she was far along in her pregnancy. Worse, she didn't go to the hospital right away after she landed. Instead, she drove to her home town so that the baby could be born there. How did she get into this predicament in the first place? She was at an energy conference in Texas and scheduled to give a speech. She did not want to miss giving the speech. Um, your water is breaking and you elect to give a speech rather than get your laboring self to a hospital? Um, you choose to speak in front of people while leaking amniotic fluid?

Does the fact pattern suggest that we want her a heartbeat away from the presidency?

Frankly, I am skeptical of the rumor that she wasn't even pregnant in the first place, and that the baby is really her 16 year old daughter's baby. The evidence is too circumstantial, and besides, it just seems so tabloidy. Take this skepticism as you wish. I didn't believe that there was any sort of problem in the marriage of the prince and princess of Wales until the very day that they announced their separation.

I am more appalled by the idea that she would do to her unborn child what the Republicans did to New Orleans -- postponing help and refusing to acknowledge the extremity of the situation. Reader, Governor Palin is pro-life. Here I am, pro-choice and so shocked by her behavior in the face of a high risk (she's 44 -- any pregnancy in a woman over 35 is considered high risk) delivery that I can't even pick my chin off the floor. It seems to me that her actions are saying that it is wrong to terminate a pregnancy, but it is right to endanger yourself and your unborn child by misrepresenting your condition to a flight crew of a commercial airline and not seeking medical attention immediately?

But that's not all. Even if you think it's okay that she behaved as she did in regard to herself and her unborn child, what about her responsibility to her living family? She had minor children. Shouldn't she have acted with more concern for her health at least for their sakes?

I am hoping that you see as clearly as I do the danger in having her in such a high elected office. If her poor judgment extends from matters of personal health and family welfare to matters of leadership, we are really in trouble.

She does seem to be better spoken than Dan Quayle, but it looks like the GOP is going in that direction again.

President Clinton Put His Arm Around Me

It's true. President Clinton put his arm around me.

Several months ago Calderoj was asked by somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody if his company would do a web site for the Clinton/Gore Reunion at the DNC. He said yes, of course, and the perks turned out to be tickets, admittance to the VIP room, and a picture with Bill Clinton.

The party was at Coors Field on Wednesday night after President Clinton addressed the convention. Calderoj and I attended with his business partner and his girlfriend, the lovely KT. There were a lot of people there whom I did not recognize because of my decade-long television hiatus, but Calderoj spotted them immediately. Joe Lockhart was one of them.

Apparently the organizers were very happy with their web site, because they made sure we got right in to the VIP room. When President Clinton came in, he was like a creature from another world. The crowd parted, and his white crown of hair looked like a halo -- I am not kidding -- this was the affect.

We waited in the receiving line. I don't know why other people were there. They must also have been donors to the event. When he got to us, we were introduced as "the people who did the web site." This introduction embarrassed me slightly because, technically, I'm just the girlfriend of the guy who employs the guy who did the web site.

We shook hands with the presdient and then he said, "Well, let's take a picture." Reader, when President Clinton takes a picture with you, he puts his arm around you. So Calderoj and his partner were to the president's right, and KT and I were to his left. It was so cool. Check back on Jennikissedme in a week or so to see the picture.

After the picture we were so excited that we interfered slightly with the Secret Service. We kind of got in between them and the president for a few seconds. They were very gracious about it, though. Nobody was wrestled to the floor or anything.

Later, when the president worked the crowd at the party, it was like watching a rock star. People just crowded around him. He kept moving, of course. If he didn't he would never have gotten out of there. But as long as he was there, the crowd looked like this slow-moving hurricane, with President Clinton as the eye, and the people who ran the country in the 90s swirling around him.

Chelsea Clinton was there, too. Hillary was not; the president explained that she had found it necessary to retire for the evening. She was wearing what I think was a Phillip Lim dress with large, gold polka-dots on a blue field. She looked great.

I was wearing a blue charmeuse Narciso Rodriguez sheath, Steve Madden peep-toe booties, and carrying my Alexander Wang clutch.

With the Nation's Premier Style Arbiter Behind Them, How Could They Not Win?

Andre Leon Talley is a Vogue editor and stylist who makes it his mission to advise up and coming African American public figures on style. There has been speculation in the press that he is advising Michelle Obama. He is not. In fact, he gave her what, in the fashion world, is equivalent to an endorsement of her husband's candidacy. He said, "[L]et me go on record saying that I have never, ever given her any advice on what to wear. To put the record straight, I think that Michelle Obama does not need advice."

Dear Reader, the day that Andre Leon Talley says this about me is the day I go to fashionista heaven. There is just no greater compliment regarding one's sartorial choices. True, Michelle Obama was just added to the International Best Dressed List, but this list is widely known as a sort of popularity contest, as in "who looks good enough to be seen boarding your private jet." (By including Michelle Obama and not Cindy McCain, Vanity Fair itself endorsed Barack Obama). ALT's compliment is the real thing.

Zeitgeist

We've been watching a lot of The West Wing on DVD lately and now we're into the 7th and last season. It aired originally in 2005-2006. The main story line is about the election for the president who will succeed President Bartlet, and the two competitors for the office are respectively, a Democrat who wants to talk to the voters like they are intelligent and capable of understanding the complexities of political policy, and a Republican with a long history in the Senate who is not loved by the right-wing of his party. Did I mention that the Democrat is also a member of an ethnic minority who eschews the idea of being the "minority candidate?"

I am not the first to notice that this election looks a lot like the election we are having now.* However, I am wondering if the resemblance between this fictional election and our real one is not entirely coincidental. I am not proposing that this is a conspiracy, with plot lines written by Hollywood screenwriters, nor am I suggesting that life imitates art. Instead, I am wondering if this similarity is a product of the spirit of the time. I am wondering if this election is not about two men with ambitions to lead the country, but is really about a nation and its need to see its long-felt desires given form and played out in a national drama.

Now, you may be thinking, isn't this what an election really is? A set of narratives about a particular country that compete for prominence? And aren't the main characters, who are both the protagonists and the antagonists depending on the narrative, supposed to be well-drawn and their arguments multi-layered and nuanced? And isn't it the one who understands us, our contradictions, and what we strive for the best the one who should triumph in the end? Isn't this what happens in all elections?

Perhaps, but never before the 2008 election did it feel like this for me. Perhaps, back in 1992 it felt a little like this, but that election was really just a challenge to what had been incumbent for 12 years. The 2008 election isn't like that. We have to go back to a time before I was born to see an election in which at least one challenger was not a part of the previous or incumbent administration. What that means is that in some way, for the last two generations, we were always voting to oppose the previous rulers. Now, we have two new guys with two new ways of seeing things. We are being given something wholly different than we've been given before, and that is exciting because it means that we are in the midst of a real shift. The campaigns are right: whatever we choose next, it is going to be a change. What is completely amazing, is that The West Wing articulated everything we wanted well before the campaign began.

*If you Google The West Wing, you will come across this idea very quickly. It just proves exactly the observation that my friend Herm once made -- you have this really amazing idea that you think is entirely original, and then you read about it a week later in the "Picks and Pans" section of People.