It is 1.34pm and I am still in bed because it’s a miserable wet day outside. So what better way to spend the extended morning than wrapped up like a sushi in blankets, watching Daily Show/Colbert coverage of the elections the last two weeks, plus C-SPAN’s videos of the speeches in full on YouTube.

I don’t know if it’s a case of the Republican strategy having “worked”, but I was really interested in watching the Sarah Palin speech – more so than the McCain one. And having watched it in full, I can’t help but feel she’s a total bully. An ALPHA MEAN GIRL. The kind of bitch I hated at school.

I can actually directly pinpoint her to a certain type of girl at the private, all-girls school I went to. My school culture was dominated by a large population of borders – rich girls from the country living at the school during the term. Those girls set the tone for the school. They were great at sports, straight-talking and funny (in that masculine country sort of way) and liked to get drunk and get with boys.

They were popular at school with teachers and students alike. And when you added the “day girls” who ran with them and were of a similar vein, probably accounted for about half of my grade.

These girls didn’t like intellectualism, or anything that reeked of subversion or strangeness. And they were very, very talented at stamping it out with a sarcastic (often funny) put down, a look of disgust or just stony silence. So talented, in fact, that I rarely saw many “freaks or weirdos” at my school (nor was I, really). Or any subcultures of any kind. I guess it was always stamped out before it was allowed to bloom and infect others.

Putting down others has a power that is two-fold. It not only relegates the culture of those that differ to yours as inferior. It makes you, and those on your team, feel superior. You’re the popular girls. You’re the winners. And they’re the losers. They’re pathetic.

I’m sure Sarah Palin, 30 years ago, would have fit right in with these girls. And I’m sure that after her rousing speech the Republicans are patting themselves on the back and feeling like they’re on the “winning team”. Not only because in her speech Sarah did a good job of celebrating McCain, but because as an expert alpha mean girl she did an even better job of belittling the Dems.