The wrote the other day I wrote about the ocean of desire and consumption and how the objects sell themselves. We have something similar going on in the presidential election. Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are handsome people who sell themselves just be being there and getting their pictures taken. No wonder Sarah can draw 60,000 people to a rally, and John McCain has a town hall sized meeting.

Gail Collins writes:

Remember how we used to joke about John McCain looking like an old guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn? It’s only in retrospect that we can see that the keep-off-the-grass period was the McCain campaign’s golden era. Now, he’s beginning to act like one of those movie characters who steals the wrong ring and turns into a troll.

During that last debate, while he was wandering around the stage, you almost expected to hear him start muttering: “We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precious.”

And Joe Biden? He has to actually open his mouth and say a lot of intelligent things to even get you considering that he might be worthy of the job, and it's the second banana job at that. It doesn't seem to matter what Sarah says, they still love her.

Elections are not about rational thought. See for example: The Political Mind: Why You Can\'t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain and Moral Politics : How Liberals and Conservatives Think. They are about our deepest emotions.