The presidential election platforms seem to revolve around whether Americans will vote for truth, hard-work and honesty, or fall for the false security of McCain’s deception.

McCain apparently will say anything to win, even if it is a documented lie:

Matt Damon, an expert on celebrity, discusses Sarah Palin’s celebrity in America:

Wikipedia will tell you that cancer is a disease where cells grow uncontrollably. They invade and spread due to carcinogens like tobacco, radiation, chemicals and infectious agents. I can not help thinking about this horrible disease when I read about Palin’s effect on America. Her love of big money from elites and her sad cronyism is obvious to anyone who looks at her record.

Palin is the Ted Haggard of politics.

Sadly, some are starting to point out “What’s the Matter with Kansas” is now growing into a national issue — self-defeatism has metastasized. While Kansas has only just started to recover and get its legs back under Kathleen Sebelius, Palin is growing in popularity at a national level among those who will be the most economically and socially devastated if she is elected.

Some people see this and are reporting on it, such as Jonathan Freedland who has published an opinion piece called “The world’s verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for”.

We know one of Palin’s first acts as mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska was to ask the librarian the procedure for banning books. Oh, but that was a “rhetorical” question, says the McCain-Palin campaign. We know Palin is not telling the truth when she says she was against the notorious $400m “Bridge to Nowhere” project in Alaska – in fact, she campaigned for it – but she keeps repeating the claim anyway. She denounces the dipping of snouts in the Washington trough – but hired costly lobbyists to make sure Alaska got a bigger helping of federal dollars than any other state.

She claims to be a fiscal conservative, but left Wasilla saddled with debts it had never had before. She even seems to have claimed “per diem” allowances – taxpayers’ money meant for out-of-town travel – when she was staying in her own house.

Yet somehow none of this is yet leaving a dent. The result is that a politician who conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan calls a “Christianist” – seeking to politicise Christianity the way Islamists politicise Islam – could soon be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Not just the world, the good honest hard-working Americans increasingly will be forced to be harsh on themselves if Palin is elected. We have seen it already in the wake of her work in Alaska — good people fired and replaced with cronies as Palin cuddles big money and pushes a hypocritical agenda of self-promotion.

The Evangelical Right Quiz is like a health check at the doctor. The question is whether the country is ready to start treatment, or if the mutation has spread too far and will be terminal to democracy in America.