A New Look at Sarah Palin

I must confess to only a passing knowledge of modern feminism. I believe that the ERA should be passed, that women should be paid as much as men and that traditional gender roles in marriage are based in ignorance and fear. Because I consider myself progressive on feminist issues I was shocked at my own ignorance and shallowness while reading the excellent Camille Paglia article recommended us by Colin.

The following paragraph, in particular, made me feel petty and dim-witted:


It is certainly premature to predict how the Palin saga will go. I may not agree a jot with her about basic principles, but I have immensely enjoyed Palin's boffo performances at her debut and at the Republican convention, where she astonishingly dealt with multiple technical malfunctions without missing a beat. A feminism that cannot admire the bravura under high pressure of the first woman governor of a frontier state isn't worth a warm bucket of spit.


My assessment of Ms. Palin's performance at the Republican National Convention was colored not only by my childish hatred of anything Republican, but also by my inability to consider the woman as a person, just like me, who had found herself in a strange and frightening situation being watched and judged by millions of people. How would I have performed in that situation? I can barely sputter out my opinions and observations in class without nervously pitching face forward onto the table before me. I, who came from a family of five boys and no girls, who knows next to nothing of what it means to grow up in America as a woman, did not even know that it was possible to look past my mindless hatred of Republicans to see a person who has overcome more than I will ever be able to comprehend to stand before the country with confidence and strength and offer herself as a viable candidate for vice president of the United States.

So now I am left to reconsider all my previously held views on the candidacy of Governor Palin. I may still believe her to be misguided in her political beliefs and inexperienced in national affairs, but at least I can now admit that she has a great deal of courage and determination. Sarah Palin is a feminist.

Being There

Linda Bergthold's article immediately following tonight's debate raised an interesting question regarding the reaction time of men vs. women while trying to pay attention to a presidential debate. The gist of her argument, I think, is that men are slower to react to stimuli than women. Okay. So the men watching the debate while hooked to a CNN reaction measuring device reacted more slowly and more mildly to McCain's "tough rhetoric" than did the women. But was it necessary for Ms. Bergthold to conclude from that that "guys are trainable" and should "just listen to the ladies?" I realize that her article is a lighthearted look at the CNN instant reaction focus group, but I don't think it is necessary to depict men as slow and in need of training.

Undecided Women Voters

When Governor Palin was announced as Sen. McCain's choice for Vice President there was the assumption that she was chosen because she is a woman and would help the campaign garner more women voters. This is a cynical assumption, of course, based on the idea that Sen. Clinton nearly took the Democratic Party nomination because she had a large following of women. That Sen. Clinton also had a huge following of male voters did not seem to be a concern.

But has the McCain strategy to attract more women to his ticket succeeded? Where, on the eve of an important Presidential debate, do women voters stand? I have found little from the media on the role of women voters in the last few days. A quick look at a pre-Palin/Biden debate Gallup poll sheds some light on where women voters stood before having a prime time look at Ms. Palin:



It is hard to tell from this poll if Governor Palin, simply by being a woman, had been able (before her debate performance) to attract women voters to her ticket. What is interesting is the concentration of middle income, child-free 35-54 year old women who do not go to church very often making up the bulk of the undecideds. It will also be interesting to see in Governor Palin is able to somehow use gender to attract more independent women voters. If Ms. Palin does decide to target this group, and if she is successful, then I would expect the media to more thoroughly cover the effect Ms. Palin's gender has had on this campaign.

Love Thy Neighbor

Governor Palin has recently attempted to resurrect the Obama-Ayers connection as part of the campaign's latest desperate attempt to shift voter attention away from the economy. If, like me, curious voters seek to refresh their memory concerning the Weather Underground and Mr. Ayers role in it they can easily find all they need here.

The weakness of this latest attempt to smear Sen. Obama is so obvious that even one of the usually lock-step partisan websites cast doubt on the strategy:

While it is known that Obama and Ayers live in the same Chicago neighborhood, served on a charity board together and had a fleeting political connection, there is no evidence that they ever palled around. And it's simply wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts.

However telling this criticism of one of their own may be, at this point in the campaign the ads and speeches will conform more to the polls than to what is written on partisan websites. If this type of attack works, even slightly, then we can expect to see many more like it.

I Pity The Fool

Before the debate last Thursday there was a pity Sarah Palin meme beginning to spread across the land. It caught hold in me after watching Ms. Palin struggle during the Katie Couric interviews, and I saw signs of it in many of the articles I read on the web. Then I read Rebecca Traister's meme smashing article at salon.com. This paragraph in particular began to eat the meme I was hosting:


But just because I'm human, just because I can feel, just because I did say this weekend that I "almost feel sorry for her" doesn't mean, when I consider the situation rationally, that I do. Yes, as a feminist, it sucks -- hard -- to watch a woman, no matter how much I hate her politics, unable to answer questions about her running mate during a television interview. And perhaps it's because this experience pains me so much that I feel not sympathy but biting anger. At her, at John McCain, at the misogynistic political mash that has been made of what was otherwise a groundbreaking year for women in presidential politics.


After reading this article and the watching the debate last Thursday I no longer feel bad for Sarah Palin. The pity Sarah meme is gone from me; what is left, however, is the question of why I would have ever felt bad for her in the first place. Would I have felt bad for a male candidate for Vice President who did not seem to have the ability to answer simple questions during an interview?

Enter The Penguin

Senator McCain had to be happy with the way his vice presidential choice performed in the debates last night. Ms. Palin, though coming across as a high school student debating a senator as a goof, at least was able to appear to most people to not have recently suffered a traumatic brain injury--she stood at the podium, her eyes were open, she spoke and she appeared to be in good spirits. Beyond that, I'm not sure she said anything of substance. I don't know...she somehow seemed to have an almost strobe-like effect on me. After watching the debate I felt dizzy, nauseous and disoriented. But at least I didn't start talking like the Penguin from the early Batman shows.

Who You Callin' Old?

This post started out as a comment on Cheyenne's most recent post about McCain's age and potential longevity. It made me wonder if there was any way that the McCain campaign could make the age factor work for their candidate. Are there, for instance, any cool people who are about the same age as John McCain who could be used as examples of cool old people? The answer is, yes and no.

McCain, at 72, is the same age as John Madden. Robert Redford is only a year younger at 71 and he is still pretty cool despite his stubborn lack of a face lift. How about Jack Nicholson also at 71? Isn't he still pretty cool? I think so. Jane Fonda is a very young 70 and I have no doubt that she would make a decent president. Gene Wilder is 75. Who wouldn't vote for Willie Wonka? Glen Campbell is 72 and has consumed more drugs and alcohol than most living people and he's still alive. He's not really that cool though. Not too many potential youth votes from a reference to the singer of, "Lineman For the County." Wink Martindale is 73. I'm not sure even I know who he is.

What I concluded while going through the sad website referenced above is that maybe John McCain is a bit too old to be president. McCain is not a "young" 72 the way that Jane Fonda is a "young" 70. Some people start to really lose it in their early 70's. Some people, when they have been beaten nearly to death every so often for seven or eight years, never make it to 70. The poor man is lucky to be alive never mind having a happy life as a U.S. Senator from the beautiful state of Arizona. Maybe he should have left it at that.