The New Holiday Diet or How to Drive Millions of Americans from the Thanksgiving Table

Just when you thought that your Thanksgiving holiday was safe from family arguments over politics, the spirit of Leland Gaunt is saying "not so fast."

The Alaska Dispatch is reporting that "starting Thanksgiving, an ad campaign kicks off to thank Sarah Palin for all she’s done for the nation, an effort led by Our Country Deserves Better, a political action committee that's pumping Palin as the next president."

No, this is not a joke.

Somewhere in the middle of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, one of the football games or maybe even a program remembering JFK, you may suddenly be affronted by an ad thanking Sarah Palin ( not former POW, decorated war veteran and US Senator, John McCain) for all that she's done for this nation. And John McCain thought that purchasing 30 minutes of airtime prior to a World Series game was outrageous.

This is Thanksgiving we're talking about. The biggest family gathering day of the year. The day that some families struggle to get through in peace.

We might have been spared this, if the McCain campaign had just let her make her concession speech. But now we can only consider ourselves warned and stock up on Pepto Bismol.

Does this group really think that this is going to help Sarah Palin's political career or are they just trying to advance their own agenda? Whatever their intent, running these ads during a holiday season to an American audience that has endured a nearly two year presidential campaign and wants to move on with getting this economy back on course runs the risk of making Sarah Palin look like the "ego-maniacal whack job" that her detractors are trying to portray.

Of course there is a potential upside to airing these ads during the Thanksgiving holiday. They're certain to make millions of Americans pass on those second helpings.

Thanks Amanda for the warning.


Our Country Deserves Bitter
by Amanda Coyne for The Alaska Dispatch

Thought you might be able to eat your turkey and pie and ‘tators without the Thrilla of Wasilla making an appearance? Winking at your men through the pixels? Her perfectly lipped-lined lips forming sentences that need some sort of decoding machine to decipher?

Thought that maybe you might be spared the notion that we should have Gov. Sarah Palin to thank for anything but saving the country from the “real America?"

You know, those real, angry Americans who, on the whole, are white and look very well fed and who drive expensive gas-guzzling SUVs and have costume-built rooms in their basement to store their designer guns. The ones who yelled “Kill Him” at Palin’s rallies, and the ones who brought their cute little stuffed animals with them when she spoke.

Those cute little monkeys.

Think again. Word has it that Palin makes these folks feel good about their anger, even though it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how she does it, or even, what they’re angry about.

Most of those angry people are also disorganized, which makes all that anger a little menacing. Mostly, they’ve resigned themselves to communicating on chat rooms (more on that later) and calling into talk radio to yell about Obama being a Muslim and the anti-Christ.

But there’s at least one group out there that’s angry, and also has organizational structure and money. On Thanksgiving, they’re rolling out a national campaign to thank Sarah Palin for all she’s done for this country. The California-based group, a political action committee, is called Our Country Deserves Better.

The group wants to thank Palin for being an “articulate, straight-forward and uplifting champion of common sense conservative ideals.”

Joe Wiezbicki, the PAC’s coordinator, told The New York Times that his group has raised a couple of hundred thousand dollars for the commercials.

During the campaign, Our Country Deserves Better was one of the few shadowy groups that defied John McCain’s pledge not to bring up Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Wright. They spent more than a million dollars on television ads in battleground states doing just that. They also ran ads questioning Obama’s patriotism, linking him to all sorts of terrorist groups, etc, etc…

It’s hard to say if Palin really understands what kind of rough beast her candidacy has borne. People get along fairly well in Alaska, even when they don’t. But her new “base” has no intention of getting along. And they’re thankful that now that they’ve got her as their figurehead, they don’t have to.

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