The Great Distraction

Katrina Vanden Heuvel on why we must not let this election become about Sarah Palin: More than anything, this election should be about the big issues of our time--ending a disastrous war, restoring America's reputation in the world and building an economy that works for more than just the very rich. In order to have a fighting chance after eight ruinous years of Bush, the Republicans need voters to lose sight of where we are as a nation and how Republican leadership got us there. We saw that with the GOP's politicization of Hurricane Gustav in an attempt to whitewash eight years of hostility to the notion of government's role as a force for public good. We see it with their hypocritical media-bashing. {Let's not forget, as Bloomberg News' Al Hunt told the New York Times, "Probably no one in American politics over the last twenty years has had a closer relationship with the national press than John McCain."} And we are seeing it again now. McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis admitted as much - as The Nation's Christopher Hayes noted --when he said, "This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." That's exactly how Republicans win. Democrats can't let them get away with it. So it was good to see Obama and Joe Biden both calling the Republicans out for the lack of attention being paid to the economy at the Republican Convention in St. Paul on Tuesday.