Wooing Ms Palin

Days after GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin described herself as "Pitbull with lipstick", Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama put his foot right in his mouth by describing Republican policies as putting "lipstick on a pig". Normally calm and composed, this was perhaps the first time in his campaign that he found himself unsettled, and that too by an upstart, former beauty queen, moose hunter hockey mom with five kids and a working class husband. Those gibes at being a community organiser, styrofoam Greek columns hubris and journey of personal discovery on the road to the White House hit a raw spot. It was around then that he was trailing McCain by a few percentage points in nationwide opinion polls.

These are interesting times in America. In November, that nation of 300 million will vote for president either a man who wants to bomb Iran, came almost last in his Naval Academy graduation and went on to crash five jets; or a man with very little executive experience and some very suspicious past associations with radical anti-American leftist outfits such as ACORN and men like Bill Ayers, co-founder of Weather Underground and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who once sermoned "God damn America!". They can take their pick and not do much worse.

The real juice lies elsewhere. Never before has a vice presidential candidate been put under so much scrutiny. Is she good enough for the job, or isn't she? Is she fit to take over as president if McCain, already in his 70s, is somehow unable to complete his term in office? After Palin's first Republican Convention speech, McCain introduced her by asking the crowd, "Didn't we make the right choice?" They did. For a reality show. What one could expect from a woman who got her passport only two years ago, whose only trip abroad has been crossing the border into Canada, and is governor of a state that doesn't even figure on most Americans' radar, one can only wait and see. What she has done, however, is strike a chord not among the urban women who are over-educated, childless and career-oriented Hillary supporters but among middle and working class women who have the same problems that she has, who have never been abroad either, who go to church and who suspect their daughters are going astray. And for the men, of course she's "hot". Add up the numbers and that's quite a lot. And as in a reality show, they'll vote to keep her in.

Democrats know that. This woman must be put in her place. Look for it, and there'll be dirt. And soon, the dirt started rolling out. Some true, some made up. The true ones - Troopergate, rape victims had to pay for medical services in her town while she was mayor, she left her town in debt, she was a member of the extremely fundamentalist Assembly of God church, she has a big dipper tattooed on her ankle. The made up ones - she banned Harry Potter books in the town library while mayor (the Harry Potter books she's purported to have banned had not even been published at that time), her fifth kid is actually her daughter's, and some more. Some even went on to compare her to Hitler (one has to admit, it is a little strange to compare somebody who wouldn't even allow a foetus to be killed to someone who authorized the killing of six million people). And the show must go on. Meanwhile, the Sarah Palin glasses keep on selling.

One can imagine the number of crash courses Palin must be taking before she presents herself for the debates and interviews. She has also started meeting international leaders. Her first meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the UN General Assembly session in New York went well and it is learnt that she picked up some valuable tips on global affairs from him. In contrast, Pakistan President Asif Zardari, bowled over by her beauty, went overboard by offering to hug her, which was met by a stony silence. In this round of wooing Ms Palin, winner - India.