Palin Bingo? Biden Bingo? Casual Voter Interest Rises

One good thing can be said about Sarah Palin. She seems to be providing somewhat of a cure for voter apathy. Heading into tonight's vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden, the Internet is loading up with Sarah Palin bingo games and Sarah Palin drinking games. If she uses a catch phrase on your sheet, or whatever, you get to cover a number or take a slug. In all due fairness, Biden games also are appearing.

You would think it was a Super Bowl, on a Thursday night of all times. TV ratings for a vice-presidential debate are all but sure to beat the record of 56 million established in 1984, a comparatively tame matchup between Vice President George H.W. Bush and Palin's female predecessor for the office, Geraldine Ferraro. Interest was heightened when the elder Bush pledged to "kick (Ferraro's) ass," laying male chivalry to the side.

One question may be asked: Considering that the future of the planet may be at stake if one of these people becomes president, isn't it maybe a little sick and wrong to be yucking it up and making fun?

But while everyone was so serious during the past half-century or so, American voters were staying away from the polls in droves. When John Kennedy faced Richard Nixon for the first presidential debates in 1960, two-thirds of Americans subsequently voted on the first Tuesday in November. This figure plummeted all the way below 50 percent in 1996, the year of Bill "I Did Not Have Sexual Relations" Clinton versus Bob "Viagra" Dole.

Voter turnout climbed back to 55 percent in 2004, when Democrats with the wooden John Kerry failed to topple the by-then-despised George W. Bush. Much of the increase was among younger adults, for reasons that analysts still have difficulty identifying. Certainly the cause went beyond MTV's "Rock the Vote."

So here we are in 2008. First Barack Obama has energized voters, in his way. And now Sarah Palin has done the same, in hers.

When people in other nations across the globe hear that Americans are playing parlor games during a political debate, they might not be all too impressed, especially people from nations who feel oppressed by the United States in the first place.