There’s no hiding it. The Republican strategy for clinching the November election will be one of derision, lies, personal attacks and small-time politics.

Last night’s RNC event reminded me of so many high school rallies of years past to elect student government officers for my old high school, Independence High School in Northern CA.

The booing.

The mocking of the opponents.

Jocks battling the nerds.

The beautiful “in” crowd attacking the misfits at the school paper.

The conventional wisdom for 2008 given all the events that make this election year critical is that Democrats will win if the prevailing political discourse focuses on big ideas. And conversely, the Republicans will win if the discourse is focused on stoking public cynicism, personality politics, small politics. 

I was disgusted by how juvenile last night’s RNC was: with Guilianni and Thompson not being able to contain their contempt for open-minded thinking and with Romney not making sense in proposing more conservative/Republican thinking as the solution to a broken Washington.

Surprisingly enough, I finished watching the whole show; even stuck around for the analysis. After everything I saw and heard, I hope tomorrow  will not be more of the same. 

Otherwise, McCain risks degrading his great legacy as a public servant and slipping down the dirty abyss of Bush-Cheney-Rove-Limbaugh politics. 

More importantly, no matter your political stripe, we deserve better. Period. 

Here’s Gov. Palin’s speech in full: palin-sept-3-08-speech