The busiest two weeks in this year’s political calendar in the United States have come and gone and all we’re left with are two words: Sarah Palin. John McCain’s surprise pick for Vice President seems to have been the most newsworthy item from the Democratic and Republican national conventions combined. “The hottest VP from the coolest state” quipped one of the many popular buttons from the Republican National Convention (RNC). But Palin’s success as a small-town beauty queen is the least of her disqualifications. She denies man-made global warming, opposes sex education (something her unwed pregnant teenage daughter might have benefited from), believes that the war in Iraq is “a task from God,” supports drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic Wildlife refuge, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and is being investigated by the Alaskan legislature for a possible abuse of executive power. The pundits can barely keep up with all the skeletons hurtling out of this bible-thumping, gun-toting, hockey mom’s barracuda-sized closet.

It’s hardly surprising then that scant attention has been paid to everything else that took place in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul that hosted the RNC last week. Which is a shame, because what did happen outside the convention halls speaks volumes about the shape of politics in the coming future. Beyond the fortified world of convention speeches and candidate scandals, over 800 people were arrested and hundreds injured by the indiscriminate use of tear gas and pepper spray. It was impossible not to notice that St. Paul had spent over $50 million on security for the conventions. As in Denver, the host of the Democratic National Convention the previous week, police had set up a small caged area designated as a “free-speech zone.” Every other gathering of unarmed civilians speaking out against the Republicans was immediately surrounded by at least twice the number of police in riot gear, armed with state of the art crowd-control weapons including brand new tear gas grenades, pepper spray canisters, concussion grenades, smoke bombs, tasers, and rubber bullets. Police also admitted to working with federal officials to spy on local citizen groups for over a year before the conventions.

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