Political Magical Thinking

I’ve mostly been relegating any political posts to Swing State of Mind, but this isn’t so much a political post as it is a musing (aka disjointed grouping together of random thoughts signifying nothing).
Tonight I’m going to see Arianna Huffington, who I find really smart and bold and all that, but at the same time I am involved, on an almost hourly basis in conversations that leave me weary and worried. These conversations are taking place on the phone, via email and in person in my office. They have different signposts, different topics, but if I were to boil the conversation down to one conversation it would go something like this:

ME: But Sarah Palin (fill in the blank) lied, is uninformed, is scary, appears to be a religious fanatic.

OTHER PERSON: It doesn’t matter. Half the country doesn’t care. They don’t care if she’s smart, if she knows anything, if McCain is lying. None of it matters. It didn’t matter four years ago, it doesn’t matter now.

ME, IN WEIRD CATATONIC ZOMBIE VOICE: It doesn’t matter. Half the country thinks one way, the other half thinks the other way. And there’s nothing we can do.

I don’t believe that. Or at least I don’t think I do. I can’t quite tell what I believe at the moment. I only know that when my own parents start sending me videos