Sarah Palin: Helping McCain or "Eating a Little Quayle?"

Okay, I admit it. As a stalwart liberal Democrat, I didn't think that any Republican could surprise me. They were all so...well...predictable in their conservatism. Surely, their GOP (Gray Old Poops) conformity would never allow them to do anything much different from their fellow Old Poops.

I was wrong.

When Senator John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate, I was struck dumb for a few minutes. Did he really say Sarah and not Sam? His running mate is a she? My God. She's Governor of where? Alaska? Is that even in the United States? (Just kidding...of course I know that Alaska is part of our country; I just have a hard time accepting that fact. After all, you can see Russia from there.)

The news media, too, were struck by McCain's choice, but they were not struck dumb. (They seldom are.) Rather, moments after the announcement, stories started appearing about this unknown first-term Governor, stories that, at first, were favorable to the 44-year-old Palin. These early stories ranged from adoration to jubilation. Here was a true 21^st Century woman, all the stories seemed to imply, who had managed to combine it all, career and motherhood. They detailed Palin's rise from beauty pageant contestant to broadcast journalist, from Mayor of the small town of Wasilla, to Governor of Alaska. But most importantly-listen up, women everywhere-she had done all this while being a devoted mother to five children, the youngest of whom is a baby with Down's Syndrome.

This fawning continued for a couple of weeks perhaps, until Palin opened her mouth and the real questions began, and the most important question was this:

Why had McCain chosen her as his running mate?

Many people, including me, had a pretty obvious answer to that question: He chose her so that he would be elected, silly, everyone knows that. He saw how popular Hillary was with women and he thought that-hell-one little lady was just as good as another little lady to grab those women's votes.

Lest any of us little ladies got our little heads confused over the "subtlety" of McCain's unconventional choice, Palin straightened us out. According toCNN, Palin said, during her "coming out" speech in Dayton, Ohio, "Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."

You ain't no Hillary Clinton, but you sure are a lot like Dan Quayle

Well, to recast a famous line once hurled at Vice Presidential candidate Dan Quayle, "Sarah Palin, you ain't no Hillary Clinton."

Speaking of that hapless former Vice President, the BBC recently reported that, "some commentators are calling Mr. McCain's running mate decision the strangest since Dan Quayle, George Bush Senior's young and untested pick in 1988."

Quayle too, as I recall, was chosen, in part, for his appeal to women voters, or so the speculation went. But, though Bush won that election, Quayle quickly became a national joke, a mistake that Palin is coming dangerously close to repeating.

These things happen when the press decides that beautiful people have no substance and when those beautiful people open their mouths and seem to confirm it.

Eating a little "Quayle?"

For Palin, that first, "Quayle-esque" moment came during her interview with Charles Gibson. In a wide-ranging interview, she told Gibson that her state's proximity to Russia constituted foreign policy experience.

Cringe.

Then, when Gibson asked her if she agreed with the "Bush Doctrine," Palin hesitated, leaned back in her chair, and, clearly not knowing what the hell he was talking about, said, "In what respect, Charlie?"

Cringe. Cringe.

It went downhill from there.

Gibson, like the seasoned reporter he is, sat back for a few minutes and let her spout a slew of mostly meaningless words to cover her ignorance, watching her talk her neck into a noose. Then he explained the Bush Doctrine to her (which her slew of meaningless words never came near), kicked the chair from beneath her feet, and watched her dangle from the rope.

Lest any of us think that Gibson was too tough on the "little lady," they gave Katie Couric the next crack at her. Surely another woman would be a little kinder, a little more understanding. NOT. Couric gave Palin a chance to reiterate, again, that she has foreign policy experience because her state is a neighbor to Russia and Canada. As if that weren't bad enough, when Couric backed her into a corner by repeatedly asking Palin to provide examples of McCain's leadership for oversight over the finance industry, Palin said, "I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you."

There are just no words...

Oh, wait a minute...I can think of one thing to say.

In record time, Sarah Palin has put "18 million cracks" in the glass ceiling too, but they are not the kind of cracks we want or need.

Listen up McCain

So what is the lesson here?

The lesson, as I see it, is this:

If McCain and his cohorts chose Palin based on what THEY thought was desirable in a woman, believing that women would embrace McCain's candidacy just because he had a woman (ANY woman) on the ticket with him, then they don't know much about women.

Women, in fact, tend to be much more critical of other women than are men and our analyses can be withering. Men frequently accuse women of being manipulative, but we don't like to be manipulated either, and the results are the public/media lashing that Palin is suffering. Moreover, we react much the same way toward any choice (female or male) that try to exploit the stereotypical "brainless female qualities," such as those that assume that we will support a woman simply because she's a woman or we will support a man simply because he is handsome.

Just ask Dan Quayle.

Sure, George Bush, Sr. still won the Presidency, despite Quayle's glaring, multiple "oops" moments, but his competition was not great. Plus there was never any serious fear that Bush would die in office, leaving us with a bumbling Quayle for President. The same can't be said for the 72-year-old McCain, who could well leave us with Palin as President, a woman who routinely makes other women cringe with embarrassment. Given this situation, what are women likely to decide about the McCain/Palin ticket?

Well, though we are known for our emotionalism, we also possess an even stronger, lesser known, quality-we are practical.

Given that quality, will the majority of women (Hillary's women) turn to the McCain/Palin side of the fence?

What do you think?

SOURCES

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/24/eveningnews/main4476173.shtml

http://abcnews.go.com/politics/vote2008/Story?id=5782924&page=4

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26952469/

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/28/analysis-pressure-builds-palin-ahead-vp-debate/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7588435.stm

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/29/palin.republican.vp.candidate/