Some things happen only in politics

Hate is a word I use sparingly. I reserve it for dictators, genocide perpetrators and people who park in my driveway at night. Or people who walk zigzag in front of me on the street.

But, by God, I sometimes hate politicians. They are experts of nice talk, just talk, even when they know you know nothing is going right.

You should have seen the amount of just-talk in the debate on Thursday night between the two politicians running for vice-president of the United States, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

Who the heck is Sarah Palin? Well, she is the girl who nearly ruined Barack Obama’s party five weeks ago. The Republican running mate of John McCain came to the limelight from nowhere.

Obama had just wildly succeeded in having a historic conversation with 84,000 people who came to a football stadium to watch the first black man accept nomination for president of the United States. Obama was on a roll.

After weeks of struggling in the polls, a spring had returned to his walk. The spirit of the nation was clearly with the grandson of K’Ogelo, Kenya.

And McCain looked like toast. So he did the unthinkable. He sent a plane to a remote state nearest the North Pole, Alaska.

That plane came back to heartland America with this girl, Sarah.

Her resume read: Former beauty pageant contestant; first passport, two years old; former mayor of a tiny town that no one can spell; two-year governor of a state that people in Washington pretend to take seriously.

And, suddenly, McCain’s campaign was the hottest thing in America.

Palin, 44, is the same girl who last week singlehandedly succeeded in forcing journalists to use a word they never allow into print: bullshit – politely initialised BS.

You see no one really knew who this “pit bull with lipstick” that could end up a heartbeat away from the presidency really was.

So a journalist sat down with her last week to pick her brain. By the time Sarah was done talking, America was left with its mouth open in shock.

And McCain was looking for a hole to hide in and never come out.

The New York-based National Review Online put it this way: America’s financial powerhouses on Wall Street need some $700 billion to climb out of a really bad hole. If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

Well, the Palin who showed up for debate with Obama’s running mate on Thursday night was a different kettle of fish.

After that terrible TV interview, the republicans scrambled Palin out of circulation and locked her up in McCain’s Arizona ranch and made her cram the right talking points she needed to stay alive.

And, my God, did she turn out a quick read – or is she just unbeatable at cramming?

The debate I watched in Nairobi on Friday morning showed a Palin that was fluid and confident, even when she chose not to listen to the questions or answer them.

She looked straight into the camera and talked to the average Joe on the street about what McCain and she would do for America.

As one MSNBC analyst put it, “she wiped up the floor with Joe Biden, quite frankly.”

And here is the funny thing. Voters could actually turn around and say, that’s their girl!

Americans don’t really care who knows enough stuff to be president. Ultimately, sadly, these debates are won or lost on style and perceptions of character, not substance.

Those are matters of taste. So this could come down to how viewers feel about the candidate.

It doesn’t matter that a subsequent spot CNN poll showed that 51 per cent of Americans thought Biden won the debate, compared to Palin’s 36 per cent approval.

It really may not matter that the senator from Delaware by all counts qualifies to be running mate and possible president. He has been in the US senate for over three decades.

As chairman of Foreign Relations Senate Committee, Biden is perhaps the most experienced man in America on foreign policy.

How a girl who needed to switch colleges six times in six years before she could graduate could even beat Biden for a vice-presidential slot can happen only in politics.

On the other hand, how a man who graduated fifth from the bottom in a class of 900 – that would be John McCain – could beat a brainy Barack Obama, top graduate of Columbia and Harvard, only happens in politics.

After all, America put George W. Bush in the White House. Twice!

The writer is a lecturer of journalism at the United States International University, Nairobi. kodi@kodibarth.com