The final days.
The count down.
The clock has started.
Gut check time.
History is about to be made.
You know the routine; the phrases that will be bandied about by TV networks, anchor people and just plain old Joe Journalists, in every communications medium known to man and moose, all to keep you on edge and glued to the screen, the monitor or the page.
The most important election:
In your lifetime!
This country.
To the world!
And Maybe Beyond-who really knows!?
WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUY HYPE ITSELF.
Election night is nigh. 36 hours nigh. Counting. And counting.
Mediated metaphors and gravitas-heavy proclamations flow through rivers of transmitting, encoding electrons. Decoded, sonorous voices over sonorous music. Pulsating arrays of news bumpers and teasers. Cascading streams of music and graphics. Election is coming. Election is coming. The future will be now.
The hour is late.
The best newscasters in the business.
The best team of reporters.
The best analysts.
The blondest blonds.
Hyperbole uber alles.
We know no shame.
Modesty? Hah! I spit on you! (sound of spittle projecting outward).
You get the picture. The hawking of a presidency on the sound stage we call America.
Which brings me back to Sarah Palin. More of her masks sold on Halloween than those of Biden -- a 3 to 1 advantage.
For presidential masks, Obama beat McCain 55-45 % according to BuyCostumes.com. The company claims 100% accuracy in predicting presidential outcomes since 2000. Uh, wasn't that the year Bush was given the election by Florida and the five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court?
Amazon.com showed Obama masks lead a little tighter, 53-47%. Go figure.
I was at a Halloween concert the other night in a politically mixed neighborhood. The only political costumes I saw were of Palin (3) and Hillary (2). Actually two of the three just looked close to or like Sarah, in red blazer naturally, dark skirt, visage, hair style and glasses. Schoolmarm or real estate agent? Only the RNC knows for sure. No masks in view actually. Incidentally, costume stores report Sarah masks were hard to come by and flew off the shelf when they got some in. By comparison, the two Hillaries were bland. No sizzle. No inspiration. Where's justice?
I asked one of the Sarahs about her own political tilt. "Oh, Obama, Obama," she said. "I just like the Sarah look."
Yoda says "Alone, she's not."
Sister Sarah has had an impact beyond her political rhetoric and the symbolism she has come to effect for her devoted fans, her true believers. Sarah does media and she does pop culture and that is now VERY, VERY hot in AMERICAN POLITICS because we live in a media age. We live in CLOSE UP. Sarah is the rock star even as she extols the real Superstar (not whatshisname but the real you know who Superstar) to her congregation in that large but oh so narrow revival tent we call the USA.
Even out of office, relieved of whatshisname, Sarah is guaranteed some talk show, some TV show, some column, maybe all three. Certainly a regular spot on FOX News Channel. Her Americans, her "real" Americans, love that whacky, personal truth that "she is like me." News flash: She's not. That matters not. News Flash 2: Sarah is where she is and you are where you are because Sarah is not like you. Sarah never was like you. Sarah never will be like you.
The fans delude. The media collude. Everyone loves rock star Sarah.
But, you see, here's the rub. The media have given birth to a phenomenon that media scholars call a parasocial relationship. It's when people who have too much time on their hands or too much need in their hearts, come to think that the celebrities on TV or in sports, music, the movies, or even in politics, have some personal connection to them, to these fans.
Parasocial relationships can range from the amusing ("Barack sent me an autographed picture. He gets me") to the delusional ("Michael Jackson is the father of my child" said the women from her prison cell to the TV camera some years ago.) to the point of stalking and home invasion (remember the women who kept breaking into David Letterman's Connecticut home where she "hung out" waiting for Dave to return?) The parasocials also believe they really, truly KNOW the stars, know the celebrities -- based on what they see and hear on TV, what roles the celebrity played, what they read about in print, what memorabilia they collect (their cherishables). Yep, they KNOW SARAH!
They don't, of course. What they know is an image. In Sarah's case, a masterfully crafted image. Her fans commerce and rhapsodize on a presumed familiarity. Palin the celebrity will have her share of parasocials and stalkers. But she will have the more benign, more valuable fans as constituents, voters, contributors, core workers who want to see their friend Miss Sarah in the White House. If not now, then later. Even people who until this year did not believe a woman is biblically and genetically qualified to occupy the Oval Office have simply "rethought" their attitudes. Sarah shares their values and if you share their values, you're okay and smart enough to be America's numero uno. And hey, she's like us.
Ah, we Americans, we're such an undemanding lot.
If McCain loses, it's over for him. Sarah loses with him but for her it's just Act I and the inter-act reviews are smokin'. Sarah Palin, this rogue, this maverick, this skinner of moose, this slayer of bears, this mother of all politicos, has an audience for one, maybe two more acts. She has become a touchstone. She will attract voters, claques of voters, legions of voters who will, if she keeps on the right (read: righteous, i.e., my kind of righteous) path. This audience of fans will hang on the code words that her pitchwoman role as family values personifies, and on whatever erotic tinges might be subtextual to male (and maybe some female) political ardor.
Even in the event that Obama wins, he cannot be expected to calm the fever of fear within 4 years. Human psychology and Bush have seen to that. Sarah will work the willing media because it is ratings and ad dollars that ultimately counts in this nation of family values. Perhaps some day we'll all actually know just who this family is whose values we talk about so very much. Meanwhile, let's hear it for Sarah "Lonesome Rhodes" Palin, not just another pretty Face in the Crowd.
