Gov. Palin and Mrs. Carton

My wife is a registered Independent. She was raised in a very conservative household, where Dad told you how to vote, and you did as ordered. Re registering her party affiliation was one of her first major acts of rebellion, right after marrying a Democrat, that is. (Needless to say I don't talk politics with my in-laws. Other than that though, they're wonderful people so I have little to complain about.)

Despite this, politically Mrs. Carton is essentially to the right of me on most issues. Not appreciably to the right, but to the right nonetheless. I actually didn't know whether or not she'd be voting for Obama or not until this weekend, when some revelations about Gov. Palin finally pushed her over the top. It wasn't Palin's attitude or her politics, though neither of these won her any brownie-points. It wasn't her looks, although she did jokingly comment that McCain had picked "some 20-year-old" as his running mate when Palin's selection was announced. No, it was her treatment of her children, particularly her infant son, that finally pushed my "Lucie" over the edge.

As has been talked into the ground over the MSM, Gov. Palin's youngest is only a few months old, is still being breastfed, and suffers from Downs Syndrome. What set my wife off was that Gov. Palin was dragging this kid all over the place campaigning. To Mrs. Carton this seems to be rather irresponsible mothering, disrupting this child's very important routine, merely to satiate misplaced ambition. She said that at that moment, McCain irrevocably lost her vote.

Now to some here this may not seem the most progressive or informed way of making a voter decision. Indeed, she didn't choose on the issues or the politics. But it is telling that the party that emphasized character so much for so long is now losing voters on the grounds of character itself. As for us, we can use all the voters we can get, if Palin turns them away, all the better for Senator Obama.

I think another sign of the deeply sociopathic nature of so many thre believers on the right is their inability or unwillingness to look at the effect of their actions on others- whether it's little Trig and his Big Sister in crisis, or the millions of innocent Iraqi "collateral damage."

When you believe the ends justify the means, you are a good fit for that party.