My Friend, Sarah

© 2008 Leighann Lord

I got a letter in the mail from Sarah Palin. It was addressed to me – Leighann Lord – not Resident, Occupant or Home Owner. Given the current housing crisis, the latter salutation might have been supremely presumptuous. The return address simply said Sarah Palin; No city, state or zip; not even a zip plus four. I guess Sarah is like Santa Claus. The post office just knows where to find her.

The letter opened with:

"Dear Friend,"

Okay, let’s stop there.

Admittedly, I’m horrible with names and not much better with faces, but I don’t believe Sarah and I run in the same circles. I have not seen her at my book club meetings. I have not had the pleasure of pummeling her in my kick boxing class. I know she went to a lot of colleges, but none of them were mine. I only went to one.

We are separated by a lot more than six degrees. I doubt if even Kevin Bacon has an easy link to Sarah. We aren’t even Face Book friends. We’re not connected on My Space, Hi5 or Linked In. I have seen some of her work on Your Tube though . . . oh wait, that was Tina Fey.

Given that Sarah started her letter with a falsehood, I felt no need to read further, but curiosity got the better of me. It said:

"I personally want to say thank you for the steadfast support and unstinting generosity you have given to the Republican Party and all of our candidates."

Okay, friends. This is worse than I thought. Either my alter ego is a card carrying, money giving Republican — she’s not, I asked (actually my alter ego is very fond of Ralph Nader, but that’s another story) – or someone has stolen my identity and is making unauthorized donations in my name. Why can’t I get a normal identity thief who just wants to buy a flat screen TV at Best Buy?

In a past life, I might have Pay Paled Abraham Lincoln a couple of dollars, post emancipation and pre assassination, but other than that I have never knowingly given money to the Republican Party. Quite frankly, I never thought they needed it. Maybe they’d have some extra ducats in the kitty if they didn’t spend money buying bad mailing lists or expensive outfits at Neiman Marcus. (Really Sarah? $150,000 on campaign accessories?) As far as I know, the wife of Joe Six Pack cobbles together her ensemble from Target, JC Penney and Forever 21.

I showed the letter to my husband and he was hurt. To date, he – a registered Republican – has received no correspondence from his friend, Sarah, although if he had, he probably would have burned it. My Sweetie is a bit disenchanted at the moment with the right wing wacko take over of his party. It also helps that I whisper in his ear when he’s sleeping, "McCain is insane. No drama with Obama."

I don’t feel bad about this. When we dated, he promised me he would switch to the Independent Party. That was his idea of sweet talk and I fell for it. I was young, in love and a sucker for bipartisan promises.

Any who, my friend, Sarah, was not writing to inquire about my health, wish me well on my career or even ask me for grand-baby name suggestions. No, she was soliciting money from me to help the McCain-Palin campaign.

"So please rush back your Emergency Pledge of $5,000, $2,500, $1,000, $500, $100 or $50 to McCain-Palin Victory 2008 in the postage-paid envelope I’ve enclosed with my letter today."

Normally, I’m all for using money to influence and corrupt the political process, but I’m shocked. I thought Republican’s – as a rule – were allergic to handouts. Wouldn’t my donation be akin to political welfare? I couldn’t do that to my friend, Sarah. I would much rather see her and John stick by their principles and boot strap their way to the White House. That’s the only way they’ll learn. Besides, I’m a little short right now. All my money’s tied up in the $700 billion dollar bail out.

And by the way, Sarah, it doesn’t take a Washington insider to know that a real friend would have at least remembered my birthday. At the very least, an invitation to the $150,000 clothing shopping spree would have been nice, gosh darn it.

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