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With her win at the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, Sandra Bullock has been established the front-runner at this year’s Oscars, much to the distress of the Meryl Streep Fan Club.

Meryl is in the running for Julie and Julia—she’s brilliant in it, though the movie is blah. In a perfect world the actors who turn in the best performances of the year would reap the awards. What usually happens is that the Academy plotzes for a mediocre/average talent who surprises everyone with an uncharacteristically fine portrayal, or a beautiful actress who gets ugly for a role (in Hollywood, daring to look unbeautiful onscreen is considered the height of courage and “authenticity”), or a strapping actor who plays a disabled or mentally-ill character, or a respected filmmaker who for some reason or other has never won an Oscar and whose continued Oscarlessness is an embarrassment to the Academy. Remember that Martin Scorsese finally won for The Departed, which I liked a lot but is not Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, or even the first half of Gangs of New York. The Academy Awards—and awards in general—are not about who deserves the prize, they’re all about the zeitgeist. And going by the zeitgeist, Sandra Bullock looks to be headed for Oscar glory.

In The Blind Side, Bullock plays Leigh Anne Tuohy, a rich (her husband owns 85 Taco Bells and KFCs) white Memphis interior decorator who adopts a homeless black boy who becomes a football star. The movie ostensibly takes on a burning social issue—race relations—and it’s based on a true story, but it’s as predictable and “heartwarming” as a Hallmark TV special. (By “heartwarming” I mean “reducing a complex issue into slush so the soggy viewers can feel good about themselves”.)

While watching the movie I kept wondering who Bullock’s character reminded me of—big hair, short skirts, tough-talkin’ Christian, high heels-wearin’, cheerleadin’, gun-totin’ cougar—and today it hit me: She’s playin’ Sarah Palin!

For my distraught friend Michael Salientes I have prepared this list of reasons why the average Oscar voter will go for Bullock over Streep.

1. Streep is recognized as the greatest and she already has two Oscars; Bullock is a likeable box-office star who doesn’t have one yet.
2. Streep’s character Julia Child finds her true calling in France and dreads returning to America; Bullock’s character is a Republican.
3. Streep’s Julia is into that Frenchy-Frenchy obsession, cuisine; Bullock’s is into that All-American pastime, football.
4. Streep’s character studies French; Bullock’s has a southern accent.
5. Streep’s character saves Americans who don’t have a French cookbook in English (and unhappy bloggers); Bullock’s saves a poor black boy.
6. Streep’s movie may be interpreted as a criticism of America; Bullock’s is about what makes America the beautiful.
7. Streep stars in a comedy, Bullock in a drama, and tears are considered a higher emotion than laughter, don’t ask me why because I’m boggled too.

Aaaaah The Blind Side has been nominated for Best Picture! Because there are ten nominees now, and one of them is District 9! The complete list.