By KEVIN JIANG
Assistant opinion editor
The 2008 election hasn’t been short on suprises, and the selection of Vice Presidents just added a new twist to this already facinating game. For months, Americans have been convinced that this election will be the most revolutionary one of our generation. Both the Republicans’ selection of Sarah Palin and Democrats’ selection Joseph Biden assure us that this will be the case all the way up to November 4. Electoral potential of both candidates aside, one can see that not only do the potential vice presidents give a little extra spice to the race, but the frenzy behind them both marks an end to the party images as we know them now and fosters a new age for both the Republicans and Democrats.
For the left, the election of 2008 has always been about a revolution in politics, with their charismatic, hope-minded Barack Obama leading the charge for “change in Washington”. As radical as the Obama campaign has been, it is foolish to overlook what the selection of Joseph Biden has done to the Democratic Party. Often seen as the party of progress, Democrats have fast gained a reputation of being inspiring, and yet in a sense flippant about the realities of American politics. Between the rally cries of Howard Dean and speeches of Barack Obama, the Democrats are quickly being typecast as the party of rampant emotion and little serious business. And yet, they pick Joseph Biden. As the sixth-longest tenured Senator in the United States, there’s no doubt that Biden is status quo Washington. Unlike Barack and the waves of young liberals that follow in his footsteps, no one can feasibly accuse Biden of hiding inexperience behind fancy words. Like their counterparts on the right, the liberal elite saw that standard party image would not ensure victory; only a drastic change in party line would accomplish that. Biden isn’t the politics of hope and change that has been the mantra of the Democratic Party, but he is what it takes to win.
On the right, Sarah Palin has quickly become the sweetheart of conservatives everywhere, and her strict traditionalism has convinced more than a few Republicans that a McCain presidency might not be so bad. However, as much as Mrs. Palin appeals to the old guard conservatives, her nomination clearly signals that old-fashioned conservatism is about to hit some strange times. Right out of the gate, voters wondered whether Palin’s large family, especially her Down Syndrome son, would keep her too pre-occupied with mothering to be an effective Vice President. Attacks like these are nothing new in modern politics, but suprisingly, ranks and ranks of old conservative men accusing doubters of sexism (of all things) came to her defense. The same faction that had, for years, been portrayed as the epitome of what was wrong with the intolerant, curmudgeonly Republican Party, had suddenly come out in direct defense of a woman’s rights outside of the home. Granted, Sarah Palin is no new age feminist, but her very presence as candidate for the nation’s second highest office has made her into a symbol of the classical empowered American woman. Time will tell whether conservatives can handle this whole female candidate thing, and as recent flaps over pigs and lipstick have shown, sometimes they get a little overzealous with the gender issue. However, it’s a testament to the power of the 2008 nominees that even the oft-antagonized social conservative wing has been all but too happy to wave the flag of equal rights and opportunity for all.
In this election, our picks for Vice President have the ability to heighten the electoral divide between the Democrats and Republicans. If general populace can see Democrats rally around a VP of old Washington, and Republicans wholeheartedly support a pick of the next generation, party differences suddenly seem a lot smaller than before. We tend to forget that politics is an ever-changing game, and if there was anything that could epitomize that constant evolution, it isn’t the 2008 Presidential race, but the 2008 Vice-presidential one.
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