Sarah Palin was a revelation for me when she exploded onto the scene in 2008. I remember I was a senior in high school in the midst of a historic election, and along came this woman running for vice president who sounded unlike any politician I'd ever heard. She didn't use a lot of facts when she spoke. When people asked what newspapers she read, she gave mysterious and coy answers like, "all of them." She had this charming habit of stringing a run-on sentence along well past the point of meaning or coherence, decorated with calls for lower taxes and more freedom. For me, Palin used to represent the gold standard by which all unenlightened political discourse should be measured.
But two years later she doesn't stand out from the crowd that much. Embarrassing comments have emerged at such a high volume this election cycle that they've become an accepted element of public dialogue. This isn't a political indictment; several candidates have revealed in their comments that they may not possess the acumen or political savvy to hold public office. The most prominent of these individuals is Christine O'Donnell, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Delaware. She immortalized herself on the Internet first by releasing a political ad that opened: "I'm not a witch. I'm nothing like you've heard. I'm you." This was issued in response to leaked footage of O'Donnell admitting that she dabbled in witchcraft in the early 1990s. In recent debates, she's revealed that she didn't know what the 14th or 16th amendments were, and at one point she asked her opponent Chris Coons, "where in the constitution is separation of church and state?" She couldn't name a single recent Supreme Court case or sitting Democratic senator on request in a nationally televised CNN debate.
Next there's New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who surprised many with his victory in the Republican state primary. He has masterminded a plan to take the entire area around Ground Zero under eminent domain to prevent an Islamic center from being placed two blocks away. It's an important plank in his campaign platform. He also recently got in some hot water when he said this homophobic gem: "I just think my children and your children would be better off... getting married and raising a family, and I don't want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option - it isn't."
Then there's Renee Ellmers, the Republican candidate for the Second district of North Carolina. Her national claim to fame is a political ad in which she compares the Islamic center being built in New York to "victory mosques" that have been built in Jerusalem and Constantinople by other Muslims. She says at the end of the commercial, "the terrorists haven't won." When told by an interviewer that terrorists were not building the center, she shot back, "do you know that sir? ... Because we don't even know who is [sic] the donors to that."
Two Florida gubernatorial candidates couldn't identify the minimum wage in Florida at a debate this past weekend. Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate running against Harry Reid in Nevada's senate race, has supported the elimination of the Department of Education and Social Security, and then later backtracked on those statements. She also said that a "militant terrorist situation" has developed in America in which certain American cities have fallen under Sharia law.
One could argue that the 24-hour news cycle and the Internet have contributed greatly to this outpouring of stupidity. True, candidates today must endure more scrutiny than at any other point in our history. But unless I'm mistaken, these media outlets have been active for more than a decade, and candidates have coped without sounding like teenagers.
What's different about these tongue-tied Republicans? Each one of them, save the Florida candidates, rode the Tea Party Express into power. O'Donnell and Ellmers received endorsements from the Tea Party darling herself, Sarah Palin. Most of them surprised incumbent, establishment Republicans by running on ultra-conservative platforms that catered to Tea Party sensibilities.
I don't have a problem with the Tea Party as an ideological movement. If a group of people simply feels that we have overstepped our constitutional boundaries and have to return to our nation's guiding principles, I think we can co-exist amicably. But I expect more out of politicians who want my vote. They need to know the Constitution and what it means. They need to know what their actual responsibilities are and what their powers will be in office. And I do not think it is too much to ask that they be tolerant. Simply put, I want them to be qualified for the positions that they run for, and I want to hear that when they speak.
Travis Ortiz is a Viewpoint writer for The Cavalier Daily.
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