Forget January 1^st. September is the new year. The Tuesday after Labor Day is like the crack of a starter’s pistol and we are suddenly Michael Phelps going for that eighth gold medal. We have new routines to absorb; from school to work to activities, it all starts in earnest now. For this year’s presidential candidates, the campaign season intensifies in September like an offshore hurricane and nothing has invigorated the race more than the Republican nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President.

The announcement of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and mother of five, as McCain’s running mate was quickly followed by another announcement: her seventeen-year-old daughter Bristol was five months pregnant. During Palin’s acceptance speech at the convention, Bristol and her seventeen-year-old fiancé clasped hands in the family box and later joined her onstage. I could not help but think that the pressure on these two teenagers was escalating with each burst of applause. Because no matter how the Palins would have dealt with their teenage daughter’s situation before mom became a vice presidential candidate, it now had to be spun with the precision and command of a military rifleman in a ceremonial parade.