Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

What’s Going to be the “October Surprise”?

Those who understand American electoral politics better than I do say that a sitting administration, especially when its fate in an upcoming election looks dire, can spring an October Surprise on the country in the hopes of affecting the election outcome. On this, the last day of October, I’ve got my eyes peeled.

The Washington Post reminds us that:

Four years ago, that "surprise" was a videotaped message from terrorist Osama bin-Laden; eight years ago it was the revelation that George W. Bush had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in the 1970s.

Of course, historians are likely to say that the economic catastrophe was the administration’s October not-such-a-Surprise sprung on itself, on the campaign and on the rest of the world.

The October Surprise whispers have hinted at a nice new war, so that McCain could focus on what appears to be his one untarnished point of pride: a war record. Many anticipated from the rhetoric earlier in the campaign that something ugly was going to come down in Iran. The political changes in Israel probably ended those rumored embryonic plans. Then just on Sunday, October 26, the United States invaded Syria.

Syria? you ask. Who says?

As a news-junky who watches BBC News daily and keeps up with a few overseas online news sources, I can’t really blame any American who didn’t realize that their country was killing Syrian civilians and provoking massive anti-American demonstrations around a now-closed American embassy in Damascus. It was briefly mentioned here and there – I saw a sentence or two on CNN and on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show. In contrast, the rest of the world featured it as the top news story for at least a couple of days. The UK Guardian screamed: “Shooting first, talking later.” The Times (UK) pointed out, “Syrian Foreign Minister condemns US 'terrorist aggression'”.

If the whole country is going to ignore these provocations, then perhaps such attacks can’t be counted on to be an October Surprise. Only stuff that has a chance of changing the numbers is worthy of that title. There have been a number of nominations.

Would the tarnishing of McCain’s military record provide an October Surprise? The LA Times wrote that John McCain’s reputation as an aviator was less than sterling. Their examination of his three early crashes – often cited by pundits as proof of his resilience – is loaded with references to “mishaps,” “several errors” and “question or fault his judgment.” An investigation into one of his crashes blamed “the pilot's preoccupation in the cockpit . . . coupled with the use of a power setting too low to maintain level flight.” However, no one seems to be paying attention to these revelations, so that’s not our October Surprise.

There’s whispering in the entertainment world that the new D.L. Hughley political comedy is what Rich Noyes of WebBusters calls: “October Surprise: CNN Gives Bush-Bashing Comic His Own Show.” However, he notes the last-minute aspect to the start of the Hughley show on October 25.” That only “gives Hughley two weekends to rant about Republicans before Election Day.”

Here’s a fake commercial Hughley showed on his first installment:

Finally, one blogger’s nomination goes to the guy he called “Maverick Dad” who pulled an October Surprise on his wife right after the birth of their daughter. He snuck out and registered the child’s name as Sarah McCain Palin. The wife was expecting the agreed Ava Grace. How much of this action was a secret, a surprise?

Secretly as in, he was talking to the local newspaper about how only "some friends and family members who I have called for prayer support know at this point," but he hadn't actually told his wife yet.

Perhaps if and when the new mom pulls a Bobbitt on the proud father, we can all agree to count that as the October Surprise.

Sarah Palin: The Happiest Republican in America

I have already done 17 radio interviews, with four or five to go before the elections. As I said at the end of my book Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter’s Guide to Sarah Palin, which I wrote in September, Sarah Palin is here to stay. She is a work in progress.

I get asked about this in most interviews, and rightly so. Some people have been surprised that I don’t think the Palin story ends with an Obama win on Tuesday. In fact, I’m grateful to Palin for chiming in this week to reinforce what I’ve been saying all along. An astounded Wolf Blitzer reported that when Palin was asked by ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas if Palin would just head back to Alaska in the event that the Republican ticket lost the election, Palin answered:

“I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that ... that would ... bring this whole ... I'm not doin' this for naught.”

No, she’s doing it for her faith and her future 2012 campaign. Sarah Palin was not chosen (more for McCain than by McCain) because of her anxiety over the crisis in the Congo or her concern over the USA attack on Syria that resulted in civilian deaths and massive anti-American demonstrations the last couple of days. She was not chosen because truth and accuracy are among her inviolable values or because of how handsomely she wears Neiman Marcus.

Sarah Palin is on what she considers a god-approved mission and the ends justify the means. Her focus centers on the agenda that all fundamentalisms share – no matter of which religion. This is the control of reproduction and of women. We’ve all talked about her scary, almost unheard-of anti-abortionist beliefs – even in the case of rape and incest, including kids. We saw her unwillingness to condemn abortion-clinic attackers as terrorists, although she’s constantly sneering at Obama for “palling around with terrorists” like Professor Ayers.

Just by saying the name Rashid Khalidi in a stomach-churning tone, she elicited booing from her supporters yesterday in what seemed like an abjectly racist reaction. Professor Khalidi (Columbia University) was – Palin told them - "a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization." Bigger booing. Huh? Didn't she get the memo? It's the PLO who is now America and Israel’s best friend in Palestine. (It’s Hamas that is considered the demon at this point, Sarah.)

If you want to see Wolf Blitzer’s report, here’s a link to the clip. If you’d rather end with my prediction, here it is. No matter what happens on November 4th, Sarah Palin will be if not the head, at least the figurehead of the Republican Party. As every other faction is in disarray if not melt-down, the Religious Right is the last Republican bloc still standing. And Sarah Palin is all theirs.

Here’s what I tell the interviewers: With her whip-lashingly swift catapult from Wasilla to Saturday Night Live and from fleece to raw silk, together with her continuing solid support from the country’s fundamentalists, Sarah Palin is the happiest Republican in America.

McCain/Palin Offer me the Sex Life to Nowhere

Before I wrote Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter’s Guide to Sarah Palin in 28 days, and before I got booked for 21 radio shows to talk about her, I used to write a lot about sex and boomers. Believe me, 28 all-nighters followed by weeks of radio shows at 6:00am and 11:00pm can put a crimp in a girl’s sex life.

But that’s nothing compared to what will happen if McCain/Palin win. McCain and Palin just love things that don’t work, things that mess up peoples’ love lives. They’ve got this ongoing crush on abstinence-only sex education even though it is thoroughly discredited. McCain doesn’t support gay marriage or adoption and Palin, despite mumbling sweet nothings about states rights (when asked about the Supreme Court), she nonetheless grows all tingly over fantasies of a federal Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and removing states’ rights.

Greta Christina turned me onto Planned Parenthood’s Action ratings where John McCain scored a shocking zero score on the issues that most touch our beds. Zero. So I began exploring some more and established that Barack Obama scored 100%. In fact, Planned Parenthood has even endorsed Obama. It’s not hard to understand why: McCain voted to take away funds from PP; while on the other hand, Obama spoke at their annual fundraising event last year.

These candidates are opposites all the way down the line. McCain wants to overturn Roe v Wade, taking away protection for legal abortions, while Obama supports Roe v Wade actively. Let’s not forget Sarah Palin: she’s against abortion even in cases of rape and incest, a view that reflects the crazed ideological elevation of a fertilized cell over the health and welfare of a grown woman. McCain won’t have insurance companies pay for birth control; Obama will. McCain won’t put a cent towards prevention of unwanted and youth pregnancies; Obama has backed several bills aimed at this social problem.

The list goes on, but one that personally bugs me is that McCain (and not Obama) supports the “Global Gag Rule.” This wretched rule withholds US family planning assistance to overseas non-profits that provide abortions, information on abortions or advocate for pro-choice policies in their own nation – even when they’re using their own funds to do it. This is the global imposition of the Republican religious right-wing agenda. This is the nasty offspring of the marriage of Freddy Fundamentalism and Fanny Imperialism, if you’ll excuse my language.

I could list a dozen other ways that a Republican victory could mess with the country’s sexual freedoms – starting with Internet porn and ending with condom distribution in prisons. Yes, as the author of the one and only critical book on Sarah Palin, I too closely link Palin in the White House with me in Guantanamo. That circumstance would very likely drain any remaining libido from my heart. Save me from a life of sexual deprivation, please. Oh look at me – begging again.

A Class Analysis of Palin’s Classy New Clothes

Let me be clear off the top that all talk of Sarah Palin’s (rather gorgeous) wardrobe is a diversion from what really counts: stuff like her position against choice, her ignorance of world politics and her intermittent allergy to the truth. But I can’t say I feel at one with those making such a hoopla around her new duds. Pundits are saying that it is an image error. After all, they point out, she’s the average hockey mom, the local small-town girl, the one who has pulled herself up from little privilege to the national stage. Fancy-schmancy clothes from Neiman-Marcus, commentators are saying, contradict this picture of the working class gal made good.

I don’t agree.

When I was growing up, I wore three-year-old hand-me-downs from Anne, the daughter of one of my mother’s friends. Three years is bad timing. You can’t pass it off as this year’s or even last year’s style. And it’s not old enough to call it retro. No, three-year-old fashion means only one thing: used clothes.

Any poor or working class woman of my generation remembers what it felt like to have their look determined by the taste and resources of an older sister or cousin. It sucked. The first focus of my college education when I left Pittsburgh at 17 on a full scholarship to go to a big city university was getting my hands on some clothes. I arrived in a navy blue stitched-down pleated skirt and black turtleneck while my dorm-mates were wearing matching floral-print PVC mini-skirts and go-go boots.

My hunger for clothes has never waned and I bet Sarah Palin feels the same. I imagine that these gorgeous new items from high-tone retailers paid for by others are as much a high as the cheering crowds. As someone pointed out, she wore fleece in her last campaign. Once word of nearly $150,000 spent on her garb (and bits and pieces for Trig and perhaps the First Dude) hit the news, Palin must have been gutted by the campaign’s defensive announcement that after November the clothes would be donated to charity. She may not have realized that if she kept the stuff she’d have to pay income taxes on that $150,000.

This lavish wardrobe was not, I suspect, of Palin’s own doing. It’s not like she’s been out cruising the malls for bargains. She was probably given a couple of catalogues, a buyer to consult with and encouragement to look her best. She is unlikely to know about campaign finance rules and regulations about tarting up the old closet. (It’s okay that the Republican National Committee paid for them and a good thing the campaign didn’t.) The woman’s in the lens most hours of the day. She wants to look super-eye-popping to a degree that Joe Biden most likely can’t match.

Palin has clearly adjusted to a new level of fashion. The costume designer on Saturday Night Live, where Palin appeared, “revealed the struggle he had in dressing Sarah Palin: she wanted to wear nicer clothes than they had picked out for her, reflecting the new image she has carefully constructed on the campaign trail.” Apparently the red outfit chosen for Tina Fey when she started impersonating Palin a month ago, was just too “month ago” for Palin.

Of course once people start looking into this stuff, it snowballs. It turns out that Palin is applying more than just a touch of lipstick. The New York Times reports that, “Ms. Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show ‘So You Think You Can Dance?’, was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone, according to the records.” Now, I’m very curious if this is the same make-up artist who was paid over $5,500 to do McCain’s debate make-up. I reported on this in my book Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter’s Guide to Sarah Palin.

All this criticism is not sliding off Palin’s silk-covered back. In fact, Governor Palin now denies that she’s received such an expensive load of threads. In an interview in the Chicago Tribute she insisted that the clothes aren’t worth that much (The NYTimes gives the details in this article.). Palin protested "That whole thing is just, bad!... Oh, if people only knew how frugal we are.”

I for one do know how frugal Sarah Palin has been. She was frugal when it came to paying for the rape kits of victims in Wasilla and when women’s shelters asked for resources. She’s been frugal with her attention to the environment, to sex education for young people, to women’s right to choose and to world affairs. Yes, indeedy. Finally Sarah Palin and I can agree: she’s been damned frugal.

Saturday Night Live Provides a Giggle on Thursday

The long-running comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live has recently had three specials on consecutive Thursdays, probably to capitalize on the incredible popularity of Tina Fey’s uncanny impersonation of Sarah Palin. Last night she was joined by Will Ferrell, who like Fey got his start on SNL and then went on to bigger (and in his case sillier) things. Ferrell’s imitation of George W. Bush has never been matched. Apparently he’s going to play W on Broadway next year.

 

Darrell Hammond, as a reluctant John McCain, has to be hunted down by the First Dude, Todd Palin, and dragged in to join Palin for Bush’s kiss-of-death public endorsement. Now that John McCain, in real life, is attempting a strategy of distancing himself from Bush, having tried everything else to little avail, this skit really hits the mark. Apologies if there's an ad accompanying the clip and if you experience a problem loading it, just go over and watch it here.

 

Catch me if you can: My radio schedule

My book Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin is getting a bit of attention this week. I’ve had a couple of the most fabulous book events, the latest at the Flying Dog Salon, a popular literary event organized by the poet, writer and insanely cool Charles Coe. If you don’t yet have his poetry collection Picnic on the Moon, click here and thank me later.

Before that, I was feted by my senior fitness students who were surprised by my book presentation and reading. They hadn’t realized that I could string together two sentences that didn’t contain the words, Walk faster! More sit ups! Lift that leg higher!

I had two articles come out today. One is in a local paper in the form of a Q&A. I was impressed with their ability to ask straightforward, non-partisan questions about a book with such a strong point of view. Check out the Arlington Advocate here.

This nice piece in the daily Boston Herald has the distinction of featuring the worst photo ever taken of an author. The photographer originally asked me to hold up the book with one hand and then turn away and squeeze my nose shut with the other. Perhaps because I refused, he came up with this unflattering image.

But enough defensiveness. I wanted to give you my radio schedule, which is pretty packed between now and the election. As you can see, it covers the country and some stations are streamed live online so wherever you are, you can invite me to penetrate your ear.

Let me know if you want to help me get the word out further. Air kisses all around.

Radio  Schedule 

Thurs. Oct 23
8:10 a.m.  ET, 20 min. live interview with Arnie Arnesen
Political Chowder in the Morning  - WCCM    
Salem., NH (broadcasting across Southern New Hampshire and Northern MA)

Thursday Oct 23
2:000p.m. ET, 30 min. live interview with Guy Rathbun
KCBX-FM, San Luis Obispo

Thursday Oct 23
4:30pm WGBR (Pacifica)
Merry Gimani, Vermont, The Quilting Hour, 40 minute interview

Fri. Oct 24
10:00 am ET, 1 hour live interview with Keidi Obi Awadu
Black Star Media - Inglewood, CA, libradio.net   

Fri. Oct 24
3:30 p.m. ET, 1/2 hr live phone interview with Laurel Blankinship-Avalon
Peace and Social Justice-KZFR, Chico, CA   

Sat. Oct 25
Noon ET, 15-30 min interview with Stu Levitan
Sunday Journal with Stu Levitan  WXXM - Madison, WI  

Sun. Oct 26
7:00 a.m. ET, 1/2 hr. live interview with Peter Solomon
WIP, Philadelphia  

Sun. Oct 26
8:05 p.m. ET, 30-60 min live interview with John Quinlan
"Forward Forum"  WTDY-AM, Madison   

Mon. Oct 27
1:30 p.m. ET with Andrea Sears
WBAI; NYC 

Tues. Oct 28
9:10 a.m.  ET 20 min. live interview with Stan Woodard
The 8:00 Buzz - Madison, WI   

Tues. Oct 28
11:30 a.m. ET, 25 min. live phone interview with Nathan Callahan
KUCI "Weekly Signals", Irvine, CA   

Tues. Oct 28
3:00 p.m. ET, 1/2 – 1 hr. interview with John Ford
KAOS, Evergreen, WA   

Tues. Oct. 28
6:05 p.m. ET    20-30 min live interview with Charone Pagett
"Lambda Radio Report" - WRFG-FM, Atlanta   
 
Wed. Oct 29
7:11 p.m. ET   20 min live interview        
KSFR "Journey Home"  with Diego Mulligan
Santa Fe, NM NPR   

Fri. Oct 31
11:40 a.m. ET, 20 min. live interview with Sonali Kolhatkar
KPFK – "Uprising", N. Hollywood
 
Sunday Nov 2
3:30 pm Laura Rinaldi, KKUP, Santa Cruz, 25 minute interview

Your Split is Showing: Palin Contradicts McCain on Gay Rights

Sarah Palin wants a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage because she just loves the “traditional” model of one boy, one girl, she told the Christian Broadcasting Network this weekend. She loves it so much that she’s going to bestow it on her teenage daughter and the reluctant boyfriend. But she wouldn’t want the majesty of that arrangement to be sullied by even the most stable of homosexual couplings. Palin voted in the past for an Alaskan state constitutional amendment to exclude gay marriage and she’s chomping at the bit for a chance to make such a contribution on the federal level.

The mainstream press noticed that Palin is taking a position that is different from John McCain’s. Yesterday CBS News told us that this is “a position that John McCain once described as ‘antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans.’” I dug back to 2004 CNN piece to find out from whence comes his objection. For McCain it is a matter of states’ rights. Apparently he was not even skittish over Massachusetts’ legalization of lesbian/gay gold bands and tuxedos, trusting that the Massachusetts situation did

"not represent a death knell to marriage… What evidence do we have that states are incapable of further exercising an authority they have exercised successfully for over 200 years?... We will have to wait a little longer to see if Armageddon has arrived."

I have a chapter in my book Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter’s Guide to Sarah Palin that is titled “Straight Talk on Palin’s Gay Friends” in which I try to search out where these rumored near, dear and queer Palin buddies are hiding. Since then, a Human Rights Campaign staffer went to Wasilla to ask the local gay people themselves about their pal Palin. Here’s his video results:

 

If you feel a pressing need to see Palin talking this week about why she is certainly not judgmental but would welcome a ban on non-heterosexual matrimony, here’s the clip from the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Putting Palin to Music

Sometimes being an observer of Sarah Palin gets a girl down. It’s all bad news all the time. The escalation of her vitriol of late isn’t very harmonious. Recently she’s been trying to crap on Obama – not for his policies or his record – but because of people (terrorists!) who have sat in the same room with him or non-profit organizations that are involved in activities he feels are crucial, like voter registration.

Palin seems to thrive on these sneering attacks and untruths. But then Palin has developed many skills since the Republicans picked her as McCain’s running mate, not the least a huge capacity for denial and the perseverance to repeat garbage in the hope that it’ll turn into magic for a dying campaign.

However, I did find someone Sarah Palin should hire. This musician has turned Palin’s confused babbling response to one question during the Couric interviews into a veritable symphony. Enjoy!

The Last Debate: Obama lays back, McCain blinks and Joe isn't a Plumber

I’m so relieved that this is the last presidential debate. As the pundits say, these debates are a test of temperament – and mine is about to unravel. On one hand there is Obama’s unflappability. Where did he get that? He sure didn’t grow up in my house, where any occasion was the right one for yelling, slapping or ridicule. Obama has a disconcerting ability to remain strategic, on-target and chilled.

John McCain doesn’t. Finally convinced, it seems, that saying “my friends” over and over gives too many people a rash, McCain adopted a new approach to folksiness by mentioning some “average American” (ie, a white man) from Ohio he called Joe the Plumber. Joe became the pillar on which McCain hung all his desperate hopes. Twenty-one times McCain invoked his new friend Joe. Joan Walsh of Salon.com called this “more farce than fierce”.

Where did this Joe come from? According to Reuters:

“Wurzelbacher came to prominence last week when he asked Obama about his tax plan during a campaign stop, which led to an appearance on a Fox News talk show and an invitation to a McCain rally.”

And what did MSNBC report about Joe the Plumber today?

He is not a licensed plumber – he’s some kind of contractor. Joe’s boss’ business only makes about $100,000 (nowhere near the taxable level of Obama’s economic plan) and Joe is apparently not in any position to buy it anyway. Joe has a lien against him for not paying taxes. According to MSNBC, Joe is known to right-wing talk radio.

Finally, the New York Times gives us Joe the Plumber’s racial stereotyping:

In his interview with Ms. Couric, Mr. Wurzelbacher, who voted Republican in Ohio’s March primary, said that his encounter with Mr. Obama had been prompted by his desire “to ask one of these guys a question, and really corner them and get them to answer a question for once instead of tap dancing around it. And unfortunately I asked the question, but I still got a tap dance.”

 He added, “He was almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr.”

 

A word from your sponsor. Before I forget, I wanted to tell you that Edge Publications is featuring an excerpt of my book Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter’s Guide to Sarah Palin on all of their sites across the country. Here is the link for EdgeBoston.

And the podcast of my long interview on the Jeff and Mike Show out of California can be found and heard here, starting at the 41st minute mark.

 

In the second debate, the one with the “town hall” structure, I worried about John McCain when he wandered aimlessly around the stage during Barack Obama’s comments. McCain seemed to be searching for a lost puppy, Mr. Puddles, Jon Stewart suggested on the Daily Show at the time. What a shame that Joe the Plumber is no such thing, for while we’re convinced he won’t succeed as a substitute for Mr. Puddles, as a plumber he might have had a tool to help with McCain’s policy clog-ups.

I watched the debate with an amiable crowd at the home of the author Gina Ogden last night, so I had to behave myself and not make too many audible interjections. This debate set-up was the best of the three. It was about time a moderator – congratulations to Bob Schieffer of CBS news on a good job– brought up essential issues, like abortion and a litmus test for Supreme Court appointees, in an intelligent way.

We were tuned to CNN so that the annoying approval detector graph depicting the immediate reactions of some group of "undecideds" ran like a lie-detector ribbon on the bottom of the screen. I tried to ignore it, but the split between the women's and men's graph lines during the abortion discussion was stark. It became most pronounced during McCain's inappropriate (I’m being polite here) sneer, complete with finger air-quotation marks, over the concept of the "health of the mother." Yeah, ha ha, pregnant women at risk of dying, was his rather overt subtext. Scary how confident McCain felt to ridicule life-and-death situations of pregnant women without remembering that women vote.

But what’s bothering me is why the hell there was such a divergence on that reactor strip between women and men when McCain condemned as “extremist” a concern for women’s well-being and mocked consideration of the life of the mother in a discussion of abortion rights? Obama was clear that he accepted the primacy of women in their own reproductive decisions. Why didn’t those “undecided” guys agree?

Which brings up the question of how, in mid-October, CNN manages to find a roomful of “undecideds” to hook up to their broadcast strip. Possibly the reason these people pretend not to have a preference is to get a shot at stardom, while the campaigns chase after their support. If they really are undecided at this point, they should seek help, not attention.

You may notice that I’m avoiding all mention of McCain’s bizarre facial and speaking behavior. So many commentators have noted that his smile has more than a tinge of grimace about it. So last night, even though I don’t support McCain, I kept whispering advice: Don’t smile! Don’t smile. Unfortunately he kept smiling in all the wrong places, blinking incessantly like someone whose false eyelash is about to detach, and jumbling answers together with an inscrutability that suggests McCain is now taking debate elocution lessons from Sarah Palin.

Palin Brings All Sorts of Pennsylvanians onto the Streets

As if the news visuals are not sufficiently devastating – what with plunging graphs, more Bush speeches than we’ve ever before been subjected to and McCain cackling about having Obama just where he wants him (10+ points ahead) – I bring you footage of Palin supporters.

Shot over the weekend at a Palin rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania by MorrillMajority, it makes all those reports of racist support for McCain/Palin more concrete than we would wish. Don’t watch this until you’ve had your morning coffee or tea because it is not only stomach-turning, it gives inescapable proof of the confidence of racists to speak openly and viciously in the “arms” of the Palin environment.

I’ll give you some good news after this venomous video clip.

Just so that you understand that this Palin crowd does not speak for most people from my home state Pennsylvania, here’s an anti-Palin rally in Pittsburgh (and there were other demos in Philadelphia). Pittsburgh is a town that was built on immigration from abroad (from Italy, eastern Europe, Ireland, etc) and the internal migration of African-Americans from the South. With the devastation of the coal and the out-sourced steel industries in the 1970s, Pittsburgh made a painful transition from a manufacturing to a service industry economy – at about half its former population size. So I was gratified to see that this rally apparently set out from the steps of the steelworkers union headquarters.

I love all the home-made signs, not the least “CUTE Just Doesn’t Cut It.” Of course, the original clever Palin protest signs were in that first huge anti-Palin demo by Alaskan women on September 13. I blogged about it here, but now I have a whole chapter on that demo, listing the slogans, in my new book Thanks But No Thanks: The Voter's Guide to Sarah Palin.