A Rising Political and Pop Culture Star

With the buzz word of the election year being “change”, John McCain, someone who has been in Washington D.C. for over 20 years, needed to shake his campaign up and energize his Republican base. With the pick of Governor Sarah Palin from Alaska to be his running mate, Senator McCain did just what he needed to do. Mrs. Palin became a political rock star over night and a pop culture icon among many people. She is the equivalent of what Barack Obama did to excite the Democratic base. Even as the left wing press rushed to discredit her, by sending reporters and the like up to Alaska to dig up any dirt they could find on the woman, she still greatly energized the Republican base that had some issues with some of Sen. McCain’s previous positions. But not only did she energize the base of the party, she can appeal to some of the Hillary supporters that are still bitter over Sen. Clinton’s loss to Barack Obama. What is also refreshing about Governor Palin is out of any of the other politicians running; Sarah is the most down to earth, average mother of 5 going through the same problems that every other American family goes through.

Governor Palin is about as far away from the Washington elite cocktail parties as you can get. In an era of disgust with business-as-usual politics, she does bring the outsider aspect to the ticket. Sarah's husband is a blue collar, union worker, getting his hands dirty as a commercial fisherman and an oil fielder on the North Slope. Another asset which can attract independent voters or moderate democrats that voted for Clinton in the primaries in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Now it is reasonable to have the debate about whether or not she is ready to be second in command of this powerful nation, but nobody can deny the energy she brought to the Republican ticket.

The New American Dream

Americans usually always try to look their best no matter what. We go to great lengths to achieve that look we all want. Americans spend billions every year collectively on designer clothes, jewelry, gym memberships, tanning, nails, dietary supplements and hair styling. Americans spend more per capita on beauty products than any other modernized country on earth. All of this can be attributed to that want to be thin, strong, and attractive. It hasn’t always been like this though. Over the past half century, this phenomenon has increased greatly. Back in the frontier days, nobody cared about their waist size or breast size, they didn’t care about what kind of cloths they wore or perfume they sprayed on themselves, they cared about providing for their families and making sure their children lived better lives then they did. As the world started to change and technology which made the basic necessities of life much more easily available, Americans worried more about material items and looks and less about stuff their grandparents worried about.

It all started with the Barbie and Ken dolls and the unattainable and false proportions of the body that those dolls represented. People every day strive to match that image of a slim and toned body and pay lots of money to look like that perfect image. More recently though, people have found a new way to try and have the perfect proportions and that is plastic surgery. Nearly 11.7 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2007, according to statistics released by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. That is up 8% from 2000. Americans spent just over $13 billion on those cosmetic procedures. The most frequently performed procedure was Botox injections and the most popular surgical procedure was liposuction. We see this phenomena reflected in Hollywood as it is hard to name an actor/actress that hasn’t had a cosmetic surgical procedure. The American dream has gone from having a house, 2 kids and a white picket fence to having the perfect nose, a thin stomach and a perfect complexion.