The Primary Season Was Too Long

I think one possible explanation for the “Palin Phenomenon” is that the whole primary process took much too long. This has been the longest election ever. You may recall it began just after the last midterm election, i.e. 2 years ago! I believe that such a long process sucked all the life out of the candidates, so that even a remarkable fresh and exciting candidate like Obama seems somewhat old-hat now. And McCain barely showed any signs of life to begin with that could be sucked away. The American people were bored with the whole process, so that a new, fresh face, completely unknown 10 days ago, generated a lot of excitement. I think McCain could have picked any unknown with the same effect. The problem is, as long as the primary season was, the time now to the actual election is very short — scarcely enough time to sort out who this unknown person really is who could end up a heartbeat from the presidency. From what I have seen of her so far, she might be one of those dolls with the string you pull in the back, exactly quoting the same lines from her convention speech over and over and over again…