Editor's Note (10/14/2008)

Story by Carson Vaughan 

| Published Oct 14, 2008

Typing this column at Meadowlark Cafe, I am surrounded by aging hipsters, caramel macchiatos and the stench of intellectualism gone wrong. The man in the Grateful Dead t-shirt sitting next to me is presumably too independent to vote. The woman behind me is too busy disparaging the GOP for its cynicism to lift a finger of her own.

Across the street, Sarah Palin’s infamous “Joe Sixpack” walks into and out of Walgreen’s. He is apathetic to the point of exhaustion and nearsighted enough to believe the average equals the best. He is simple enough to ignore the ideas he is unfamiliar with and conceited enough to assume they’re not what’s best for the country anyway.

Republican vice-presidential Nominee Sarah Palin is living proof of the fact that America has somehow moved beyond apathy and on to anti-intellectualism. Millions of Americans do not embrace a young, conservative Alaskan governor as vice president of the United States; they embrace their “salt of the earth” neighbor: attractive, fun, pious and certainly not a politician.

A lot like themselves, they say. Millions of Americans believe the most powerful positions in the world are best occupied by an ample amount of mediocrity.

The “real” responsibilities of governing an Alaskan town the size of Gering, Neb., are more than enough credentials, they say.

Meanwhile, national news anchors and political pundits tell me Delaware Sen. Joe Biden must dilute his smart talk in order to win the vice-presidential debate. In order for Biden to attract the American public, he must appear less intelligent. In the middle of America’s largest financial crisis since the Great Depression, Americans want a Joe Six-pack solution. Stuck without a fire escape in a war in the Middle East, America wants a “hockey mom” whose foreign policy experience is limited to searching for Russia from her back porch.

Biden may have served the sixth longest term in the U.S. Senate among current U.S. senators, and he may be the chair of the U.S. foreign relations committee, but as my down-home stop class teacher told me last weekend, “I really like Palin’s glasses.”

A vote for a Sarah Palin ticket is not a vote for good values. It is not a vote for a conservative platform. It is a vote for irrationality. It is a vote for the decadence of American politics. It is a stubborn and ignorant vote for a stubborn and ignorant non-politician.

Take the time to vote this year, and take the time to do it rationally. Think for yourself. For just a moment, drop what your parents told you about politics and politicians. Drop what your FOX or CNN news anchor told you. Don’t ask yourself if Sarah Palin is a good candidate for the Republican Party or a bad candidate for the Democratic Party. Ask yourself if Sarah Palin is a good candidate. Ask yourself if you want the Bush mentality of the last eight years to guide the next four.

If you care about cleaning up the cesspool America currently swims in, you will vote. And if you want America’s future to be guided by leaders that can answer tough issues from intellect instead of memory, you will think twice before voting for the Sarah Palin ticket.


Respectfully-er,


Carson Vaughan
Editor In Chief
Dailyer Nebraskan