Published: October 09, 2008 10:33 pm            

Stan Champer: Odds were against matching the hype

Wow-EEE, am I glad that’s over! My cat’s glad it’s over.

The fishes in the sea are glad it’s over.

Surely and verily, all things great and small are glad it’s over.

Simon says, now you can turn off the TV, walk to your bedroom, and quietly have the nervous breakdown that all the hype was poised to cause.

I thought Joe Biden and Sarah Palin both did well Thursday night in their only debate of the campaign season. I think their exchange will prove of great benefit to a lot of Americans trying to decide how to vote.

It was the craziness of the hype that preceded the debate that left me – and maybe a lot of you — flat puzzled about what to expect.

To be honest, I was expecting fireworks. I was expecting great explosions of green and blue and red and yellow.

I was expecting the smoke from these great displays to fill the hall.

I was expecting the combatants to jog in from opposite entrances, dressed in shimmering robes, their gloved hands raised in the confidence of victory.

I was expecting the theme from “Rocky” to be building to a magnificent crescendo.

I was expecting Spinks and Ali.

Well, fess up, you were expecting Spinks and Ali, too ... or Stallone and Weathers ... or Dempsey and Tunney. After all, this wasn’t just the featured card of the evening. This was the featured card of the whole shebang.

The national media made it so. The national media stirred the pot with a frenzy, hyping the debate between the two vice-presidential candidates as if we were about to witness the War of the Worlds.

I even went out and bought a can of mixed nuts.

The problem with what the national media did is that it skewed perspective in a way that had the effect of sending everything else in the game to the dugout.

So you say there are still two debates to come between the Numero Unos? Ho Hum.

I’d hate to think that we’ve been hyped out of looking forward to these.

I’d hate to think that the issues of this race have been diminished in importance. People still want to know where the candidates stand on:

‰The financial collapse and how to recover.

‰Where we go from here on Iraq.

‰Plans for achieving energy independence.

‰What comes next in the war on terror.

‰Illegal immigration, fuel prices, education, jobs, outsourcing, the cost of a gallon of milk, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

‰etc.

If these issues don’t get the attention they deserve in the next month or so, then we’ll all have some problems. One of mine is this can of mixed nuts I bought. It’s still half-full. I’d divvy it up and send it to the national media if I didn’t suspect they already have a good supply.

STAN CHAMPER can be reached at schamper@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2640.

        

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