Sarah Palin, Author

Yesterday’s Mediabistro newsletter contains the surprising-yet-unsurprising report that former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin would be releasing a book through HarperCollins. The AP reports that “Palin's memoir, currently untitled, will cover her personal and political life, from her childhood in Alaska and last year's campaign to her political beliefs and her family life, including the pregnancy of her teenage daughter, Bristol Palin, who gave birth in December to a baby boy, Tripp.” The memoir is due to be released next year, the same year Palin is up for reelection.

Why is this surprising? Well, you see, sometimes I forget what type of world we actually live in, and I regress to assuming that people only want to read books that are well-written, or interesting, or both. Not so. Why wouldn’t millions of people be interested in reading about the personal and political life of an Alaskan governor who until a year ago no one had ever heard of? Why wouldn’t we want to read about her moose-hunting expeditions, or her challenges in trying to raise a family of five children, one of whom—gasp—has a child of her own. And—again, gasp—she’s still a teenager. How interesting.

Why is this unsurprising? Well, Tori Spelling has just inked her third book deal (and yes, I just compared Sarah Palin to Tori Spelling). President Obama has appeared shirtless on the cover of the Washingtonian. A talk show host has legions of followers buy any book she recommends. What I’m getting at here is that it’s celebrity that sells; rarely does merit alone create a popular product.

But who knows—maybe Sarah Palin (or her ghost writer) will craft an excellent memoir for the ages. I’m not holding my breath, though.

Thoughts on the Election Season

For the first time in my life, I've followed in-depth, state-by-state polling during a presidential election, thanks largely to fivethirtyeight.com, an amazing site run almost completely objectively by Nate Silver. You know the man's got real cred when he's been on The Colbert Report. What have a learned from all this statistical complexity?

Well, for one thing, the electoral college gives power to the few and takes it away from the many. States like New York, Illinois, California, and Texas are simply locked in. Voters for the minority party in those states are just out of luck. I know it's controversial to say that their votes no longer count, but the result for the state has clearly been decided at this point.

What would switching to a pure population vote do to the election season? It would make New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago much more popular, for one thing. Rural voters might feel disenfranchised, as would the less populous states in the west. But isn't the point of a democracy to give all citizens the right to cast an equal vote? Is it time to make the switch?