To affinity -- and beyond?

I'm torn.

Part of me wants to wait until after the vice-presidential debate to say anything else about Gov. Sarah Palin. Cloistered at Sen. John McCain’s ranch in Arizona, she's currently immersed in what’s being called "debate boot camp." She may acquit herself well on Thursday -- better, one would hope, than she's done in three regrettable press interviews.

The rest of me, the part that thinks, realizes that while boot-camp immersion can give her answers, it can't fix the real problem: Sarah Palin doesn’t understand the questions.

Never mind her résumé -- she's undeniably political. It's become equally obvious, however, that she's given virtually no thought to policy, certainly not at the national and international levels.

Critical deliberation hands down a clear verdict: Sarah Palin is out of her league. So why is she still there?

For the explanation, and with great embarrassment, I defer to what Central Ohioans -- my neighbors -- reportedly have said about Gov. Palin over the last few days. These are verbatim:

"She's so fresh. She has a lot of kids and so do I. I was a schoolteacher, a working mom, so I know she can do it."

"I've been there. If you can run the PTA, you can run the country."

"She's real. Everyone can identify with her. She has five kids. I have six."

"She is a go-getter. She is adorable. She is conservative. She is family oriented. She is pro-life. She is her own woman. She makes me feel proud."

"She came from a middle-class family. She did it with conviction and grit. God's in charge. I'm voting for God first."

And my personal favorite:

"When she said she could skin a moose, that did it for me."

It's called affinity, and it wins elections. Problem is, affinity is a feeling and requires no thought. Affinity for race, gender, family, hometown, religion or lifestyle can cause us to stop thinking about whether or not the candidate actually is qualified to hold the office.

That’s what’s happening here. Only recently have leading conservatives come to their senses and started calling for Gov. Palin to withdraw from the ticket, but it’s probably too late for that.

The thought of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from leading the free world scares the hell out of me. Perhaps the only fright that rivals that prospect would be knowing that the man in charge showed the absence of judgment to put her -- and us -- in that position.