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Who’d’a thunk that the political party more effectively capitalizing on the world wide internet’s auto-immune deficiency would be those stodgy ol’ Repubs – party of Sansabelt and MedicAlert, war and gasoline, glory hole shame and snake-handlin’ salvation. The party which arrived at this year’s electoral soiree flashing clean-shorn crotch like a tabloid debutante, looking to spread their cultural herpes with a meme so virulent that even after a double-dose of black market Mexican antibiotics it still drips from the urethra of the zeitgeist’s cold-sore-ridden member. I refer of course to Sarah Palin – the Repubs very own RickRoll – who just four weeks ago splattered across the Spiritus Mundi like placental shrapnel from a coat hanger abortion on a bus depot ladies’ room floor (no mere metaphor should Palin and her fellow Christ-a-Plenty glossolalists have their Roe V. Wade druthers).

Of course the joke was on me – and everyone like me – who underestimated the Republicans’ L337HAX0Rtude, scoffed at their Twitterness. Truth told the Republicans, thanks to Mike Steele’s goose-steppin’ GOPAC, are masters of the meme, which is why anyone rubber-neckin’ the party’s National Convention last month heard more soccer chants than in a stadium full of hooligans on “Free Guinness Day.” Just listen to the laboriously crafted catchphrases rolling off the Oxycotin-bloated tongues of the GOP’s AM radio pundits. Then peep as they’re regurgitated across innumerable blogs and message boards, where one finds more ugly American id than ever thought could be contained in the ever-expanding Interverse. The internet used to be the domain of the tech-savvy thinking class and many Dems, especially those still running Clinton-era mental operating systems, make the very wrong assumption that this is still the case. How naïve. How out of touch. Newsflash, 90’s dinosaurs: Cobain’s dead, the Spin Doctors ain’t getting spins no more, and the INTERNETZ is no longer reserved for Wired-reading dot-com start-uppers with greying soul patches and $500 plastic rims. It is now stomping grounds for he who Sarah Palin calls “Joe Sixpack” – the largely male, largely obese genus dumbass americanus who hides under the internet’s cloak of anonymity to spill hate-filled, ignorant, misspelled missives usually containing some variant of the word “FAGGIT.” The INTERNETZ done gone NASCAR on your ass. And the Repubs – being capitalists – are capitalizing on this fact, they possessing the wherewithal to recognize this ‘net thang as the post-industrial age’s most efficient propaganda machine.

So while much head-scratching has occurred care of the koan “just what the hell was McCain thinking?” vis-à-vis his selecting the aforementioned book-burner as his running mate rest assured that’s exactly the point. The Repubs needed sticky content and they found it up in yonder meth-lab-dotted hills of Alaska. But like one of those doll-within-a-dolls that are oh so popular with Palin’s hostile next-door neighbors, the LuvGuv’s not just the substance-free-substance but the vessel, the tweedle-dumb rural drawl to deliver the party line to those who can only comprehend what is said S-L-O-W-L-Y, succinctly, in as simple terms as possible.

Gotcha Journalism

No doubt intended to counter the multitude of Youtubes depicting Ms. Palin getting worked over by that insufferable hard-ass Katie Couric – and also as preemptive damage control had the VP debate spawned more of the same inbox-clutterin’ nuggets (alas it didn’t), McCain and Palin kicked off their week by unveiling GOPAC’s latest noggin-sticker:

Didn’t catch it? Don’t worry, they’ll say it again. And again. “Gotcha journalism” apparently refers to a tactic used by the MSM (GOPAC jargonese for “main stream media” – Repubs use more acronyms than the Church of Scientology) to catch a public figure in a moment of self-contradiction, backpedaling, or outright fibbing. Of course this used to be called just “journalism.” But add “gotcha” to the front end and you’ve got a MSG-saturated piece of brain-candy downloadin’ like a Lil’ Wayne ring-tone to the Boost Mobile Phone of the collective-consciousness.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

Those who watched last night’s VP debate witnessed the LuvGuv’s efforts to correct Joe Biden’s misappropriation of her party’s official NRC catchphrase: “It’s not ‘drill, drill, drill,’ Joe. It’s ‘drill – BABY — drill!’” The distinction being that the Repubs want actual babies to do the drilling. Perhaps retarded babies, to bring home the point that every little angel is part of God’s plan, even the retardeds, and that by scraping that critter out of your spitter you Pro-Choice heathen lezbos deplete much-needed babies from the oil industry’s labor pool.

Obviously “drill, baby, drill!” is a meme Republicans will not let go quietly into this good night, and for good reason: It is the crux of their energy policy, one which hinges on the precept that the only viable solution to America’s addiction to a poisonous, expensive, non-renewable energy source is to give Dick Cheney’s cronies free reign to prospect for more of it in public waters. That the potential upside would, in the best case scenario, be analogous to putting a band-aid on gangrene matters not: What matters is that we continue to line the coffers of American institutions such as Haliburton, ConocoPhillips and Mobil Exxon. Rock, flag and eagle, baby.

Maverick

From 1969 – 1977, one of the Ford Motor Company’s sales leaders was a sporty compact built on the rear-wheel drive platform of the Falcon, one boasting stylish yet inexpensive features to bridge the gap between muscle car enthusiasts and more frugal, budget-conscious consumers. The success of the Ford Maverick apparently made an impact on John McCain – oddly, as the candidate spent most of the model’s glory years in a POW camp several thousand miles removed from America’s consumer culture – enough that he’s appropriated its name as his chosen campaign allonym. The Repub’s VPBot drilled-drilled-drilled this baby into the ground like a good little automaton during last night’s debate, but ye Gods bless Joe Biden for taking her to task for it.

Indeed, John McCain no more resembles a sporty compact from the early 1970s than he does James Garner, who was twice-nominated for an Emmy in the titular role of ABC’s Maverick which aired from 1957 – 1962. McCain may well have been a maverick in the halcyon years of his political career, but he cashed in those chips when he inserted himself into the musty recesses of George W. Bush’s posterior some eight years ago. “Used to be” doesn’t mean “is now,” John McCain: circa 2008 you are no more a maverick than you are POW.

The Wink

More affectation than bona fide meme — or perhaps GOPAC’s most brilliant meme yet, as it contained no words and yet still conveyed their simple, easily-digestible message, which through ad naseum repetition Sarah Palin was to engrave on the public’s psyche. Sarah Palin winked no less than 4,000 times during the vice presidential debate, each time with the OCD precision of a veteran stripper who’d memorized the perfect rolling-of-tongue-over-pouted-lips with which to separate her crotch-engorged customers from their sweaty singles. To you women, it was meant to convey that you and LuvGuv Palin were on the same page; them Waaaarshington stuffed suits might not get it, but y’all were sharing the same menstrual cycle. To the men, it was the same wink you might receive from across the TGI Friday’s bar at the tail end of happy hour, letting you know that if you played your cards right – and buy her a mudslide or two — you might have yourself a hot lil’ Pentecostal hockey mom handling your snake tonight. Sure it lacked subtlety, but only to distinguish the wink from a nervous tic, which would’ve just been creepy.

Main Stream Media

Palin dropped only one MSM-bomb last night, but its message was clear: Don’t believe what your eyes and ears told you as you peeped those YouTubes of Palin spouting non-sequitur word salad like Katie Couric had caught her in the throes of a stoke – they were just part of the vast conspiracy perpetrated by the evil Main Stream Media (meaning any news outlet not owned by Rupert Murdoch) to undermine the Republican’s campaign. Why? And to what end? Simple answer: The Jews! See, Jews (who own the media, right?) are not Christians and thus hate America. And while Palin’s declarations of love for Israel last night might be misconstrued as a love for the Jews themselves, rest assured it is only because the real estate they’re sitting on is where Jesus was born, and where he’ll be born again come the pending Apocalypse. Don’t ever, ever, EVER underestimate a Pentecostal Christian’s steadfast belief that the end times are coming, and sooner rather than later: It colors their every action, and every aspect of their waking lives. We might not know much about Palin, but it is this factoid pertaining to her background that is most terrifying.

Perhaps what was most surprising about last night’s VP debate was that Palin’s head did not explode a la Scanners, spraying Gwen Ifill and the first three rows with bloody sinew. Indeed Palin met expectations (which were admittedly quite low) and succeeded in her assigned task of beating party talking-points into the ground and spreading those GOPAC memes. But perhaps, for those of us terrified at the thought of another eight years of governmental corruption and our continued slide toward economic fascism (and I use this term not hyperbolically but in the most literal sense), this was the best thing we could hope for. And it is here that I come back around to this essay’s title, and point out the lesson the now-quasi-defunct New Line Cinema learned the hard way in marketing their 2006 film Snakes on a Plane. Eight months prior to its release date, Snakes on a Plane was spread all over the zeitgeist like the Clorox-scented glaze on the face of a bukkake princess. On the YouTubes, on the 4Chans, at the watercooler and spilling from the lips of drunken frat boys, those snakes on the motherfuckin’ planes were motherfuckin’ inescapable. New Line, in an attempt to reign in something that had developed quite naturally, and organically, tried capitalizing on their film’s inexplicable place in popular culture by further beating the meme into the ground. Yet by the time the film bowed in theaters, the public had moved on, and the results were just short of disaster. Snakes on a Plane performed well below all industry expectations and proved once and for all that such calculated attempts to harness the collective consciousness were as fruitless as trying to fuck a volcano. With this in mind, it is quite possible that come election time the American public will similarly tire of Sarah Palin –- and her annoying yokel twang, her winks and fingernails-on-chalkboard white trash sorority girl mannerisms — and move on to the zeitgeist’s next hot piece o’ sticky content –- like a video of a monkey peeing on a dude, or a Fergie song’s titular euphemism for getting fisted by a midget. We can only hope.

• New York Congressman calls Sarah Palin “disabled” — perhaps being too kind